Stargate: Revelation
by ewarrior11
Summary: It has been seven years since the defeat of the last Ba'al clone, six years since Atlantis returned to Earth. The uneasy peace in the galaxy is about to be shattered, and it will change the destiny of mankind forever...assuming mankind survives.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This is likely to turn out to be the longest fanfic I've ever written when it's all said and done. I will try to get out at least one or two chapters a week. I intend for every major character from SG1 and SGA to have a major role, and we'll also see a lot of familiar minor characters as well._

_All copyrighted work is the property of its respective owners. This fanfiction is not written for monetary or profit making purposes._

_Backstory Note: For those that may not remember, the Asurans were the human-form replicators from Stargate Atlantis._

**Chapter 1**

"Lieutenant, report," Colonel Steven Caldwell said, strolling onto the bridge.

"It's as we expected, sir," Lieutenant Terry Rose said. "It's a shipyard."

The _USS Daedalus_ sat in geostationary orbit around M3V-544, a Wraith world. Thanks to the ship's ZPM, they remained cloaked and off enemy sensors.

_Damn good thing too,_ Caldwell mused.

M3V-544 was a fairly unremarkable planet except for the massive Wraith shipyard. The entire system was crawling with Wraith cruisers and hive ships. If Daedalus's cloak were to fail, the life expectancy of the ship, even with its Asgard derived weapons and shields, would be measured in seconds.

With Atlantis landed in Earth's Atlantic ocean and with its hyperdrive disabled, neither the US nor any of its allies had been able to establish any permanent bases in Pegasus. The Ancient-built city had the defensive and offensive firepower needed to serve as a base in a Wraith controlled galaxy. Several attempts had been made to set up defensive fortifications on remote worlds, but the Wraith always attacked before sufficient defensive fortifications had been put in to resist a determined attack.

The Wraith's timing was good. A little too good, perhaps, in one Colonel Steven Caldwell's opinion.

Caldwell had no direct evidence of a security breach within the SGC, the IOA, or the US military in general, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that they had a mole somewhere. What really confused him is who a mole might be and how such a person might be turned to actually work with the Wraith.

As bad as all that was, what he was looking at on his sensor readout was worse.

"Are we detecting any vacuum energy fluctuations?" Caldwell asked.

ZPMs operated on the principle of drawing power from vacuum energy, also known as zero-point energy. As Caldwell best understood it, "virtual" particles could sometimes form in pure vacuum but were annihilated immediately. ZPMs harvested these virtual particles as energy before that annihilation occurred.

The Wraith didn't possess such technology. Or, rather, they hadn't until recently. It had been six years since the Second Battle of Earth where Atlantis engaged an experimental hive ship in space combat above humanity's homeworld. The hive had been refitted with ZPMs and was many times as powerful as any other hive. Given what had happened to _Daedalus_ when Caldwell had engaged the new hive ship, he was convinced that that one hive could've single-handedly engaged and destroyed every other Wraith hive ship in Pegasus.

Lieutenant Rose's eyes told the story before he even spoke. "Yes, sir, we're getting significant vacuum energy fluctuations from many of the partially completed ships."

Caldwell released a pent up sigh. "Any idea of numbers and strength?"

Rose nodded. "I'm detecting forty ships in various stages of…construction, if you could call it that." Hive ships weren't built so much as they were grown. "On a good note, sir, the vacuum energy fluctuations from each ship are far lower than those from the hive ship that attacked Earth."

"Any opinions on why?" Caldwell asked.

"A little out of my league, Colonel," Rose replied.

Caldwell hit his comm button. "Dr. Novak, I assume you've been watching the sensor feed?"

"Yes," she replied. "I think they aren't using ZPMs, not as we know them. They probably reverse engineered Asuran ZPMs and have managed to build their own. Much less capable, but available in greater numbers."

"I suppose we should assume these ships will be able to reach Earth?" Caldwell asked.

"I think that's a pretty safe [hiccup] assumption….sorry, sir," Novak replied.

Caldwell rolled his eyes. Novak was brilliant, but my God, she was a hazard. "Thank you, doctor. Lieutenant Palmer, set a course for Earth. Take us to the outer system on sublight before decloaking to go to hyperspace. I'd rather the Wraith not know we were here at all."

"Yes sir," his helmsman answered.

"The IOA is just going to love this," Caldwell muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"You cannot possibly be serious."

"I'm afraid I am, Senator," Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill replied.

"Let me get this straight," Senator McMurray began. "There is a race of alien predators in another galaxy building a fleet of ships solely to come all the way here to kill us all?"

"Actually, they're going to suck the life out of us," O'Neill said. "That's after they destroy our fleet, nuke us from orbit, and put cream AND sugar in their coffee. At the same time."

Senator McMurray stared in disbelief.

"Oh, and they'll, uh, kill our leaders before they get to the sucking part. The life sucking part, I mean. I didn't mean to say that they suck in a sense of their military prowess or in any other, um, sense…"

O'Neill ground to a halt and looked towards his old friend, Brigadier General Samantha Carter. She stifled a smile and shook her head slightly.

"Anyway, Senator," O'Neill continued. "Yes, they have the capability and desire to destroy this planet."

"Why?" McMurray asked. O'Neill did his best to stifle an annoyed groan. Senator McMurray was chair of the Senate Budget Committee and had only recently been informed of the operations of the Stargate program. "They have no reason to attack us, especially when there are human populations in Pegasus for them to feed on. Listen to what you're saying, General. This is insane."

This time O'Neill failed to stifle the groan. "You know, I have this odd feeling that I've done this once before…"

"Excuse me?" McMurray snapped.

"Senator, the Wraith are predators," O'Neill went on as if nothing had happened. "They survive by feeding on humans. Earth is the most heavily populated human world in two galaxies. We're a natural target for them."

"Again, why would they not feed on the human populations of Pegasus?" McMurray asked.

O'Neill was getting seriously annoyed. It was clear that this pusillanimous bastard hadn't bothered to read the materials the SGC had sent to him.

"As was mentioned in the information packet you received, the human populations of the Pegasus galaxy are too sparse to support the Wraith," O'Neill replied.

"Yes, that was a result, as I understand it, of the Atlantis expedition waking the Wraith earlier than they normally would have if left to their own devices," McMurray stated pointedly.

_OK,_ O'Neill though. _Maybe he did read the packet._

"Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir had no way of knowing the Wraith even existed, or the potential consequences of killing their captors. Our people traveled to Pegasus in peace, Senator, and our open hand of friendship was rewarded with hostility," O'Neill said. "Our people defended themselves with appropriate force."

"Has it occurred to you, General, that these sorts of problems might have been avoided if we'd simply minded our own business and not traveled to Pegasus in the first place? For that matter, if you'd never stepped through that damnable gate to Abydos we might have avoided war with the System Lords. That particular war, I remind you, was one that we just barely won." McMurray's face was turning red.

O'Neill wanted to disagree with McMurray, but he had to admit, the smarmy bastard had a small point. He had once told Daniel Jackson that every time SG-1 traveled through the gate that they were sticking their collective noses where they don't belong.

It really was a miracle that he had been promoted to flag officer rank. O'Neill simply did not have the mindset for being a proper general, and he knew it. Smart generals kept their people out of trouble, were cautious, Machiavellian at times, and able to make hard decisions without letting emotion get into it. At heart, O'Neill had a bad case of wanderlust. McMurray may have been right. If he and Dr. Jackson had not traveled to Abydos under orders from General West all those years ago, the war might've been avoided. But, Jack would never have traveled to other worlds, made alliances, or seen many of the wonders of the universe. Despite how much he tried to hide it, he was a romantic at heart and he wouldn't have traded those experiences, good and bad, for anything, and he knew it.

"Senator, at that time, it had been centuries since the System Lords had visited Earth, but trust me, they had not forgotten it. Sooner or later, they would've returned. At least with the gate, we were able to procure technologies and allies that, ultimately, enabled us to defeat them," O'Neill said.

"So you say," McMurray said. "In any case, this meeting is not about the System Lords, but the Wraith. Since we've all been dragged along for the ride by the actions of Dr. Elizabeth Weir and Colonel John Sheppard, perhaps you'd like to tell this committee what your plan is to deal with them?"

O'Neill sighed and rubbed his head. As bad as the hearing had gone so far, the worst was yet to come.

"As things stand, the Wraith have built an impressive fleet of upgraded hive ships. They're not as powerful as the one that attacked Earth, but they are significantly more capable than a standard hive ship. According to intel gathered by one of our ships, the new hive ships are powered by an energy source not unlike the ZPMs the Ancients used. The Wraith ZPMs are much less capable, but we estimate their ships can make the journey from Pegasus to Earth in approximately three years. That's the time frame we have in which to prepare," O'Neill explained.

"And what preparations do you propose?"

O'Neill glanced towards Carter. She looked worried, but also nodded, indicating her silent support for what he was about to propose. "Senator, I propose a reorganization of the US military. Our forces are still currently configured to deal with threats on this planet, but we need to gear up to deal with interstellar threats instead. To that end, I propose that we merge the US Air Force and US Navy into a single service, the United States Space Navy. The Army would be reorganized into a full featured planetary combat force responsible for any combat inside a planetary atmosphere in air, on land, or at sea. The Marine Corps would serve the same function for the USSN that it currently does for the US Navy."

"Well," McMurray chuckled. "Is that all?"

"No, senator. I also propose we implement a crash building program to field as many warships as possible. We should also consider abolishing the IOA and Homeworld Command. Those measures were instituted as stop-gaps, more or less. We need a more permanent, planet-wide military alliance, one that doesn't have an unelected board of officials interfering in the internal affairs of rival nations." O'Neill said. He took a breathe and then delivered the final blow. "And I suggest we go public so that we can bring the full weight of our economy behind this effort."

McMurray almost had a heart attack. "Are you fucking serious, general?"

O'Neill sighed. "We've been operating the Stargate for eighteen years now, senator. We knew when we started the program that it would not remain a secret forever, and I think that day has finally come."

"People are not ready for this," McMurray said.

"No, they aren't," O'Neill replied. "Then again, the Air Force wasn't ready for what happened when we first opened the gate. We are facing an existential threat and, barring a miracle, this war will be fought on our own soil. People deserve to know what they face."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"General O'Neill" Teal'c greeted.

"T, how the hell are you!," O'Neill said, shaking his hand in the prescribed Jaffa manner. "And what are you doing here?"

"I am here on behalf of the Jaffa High Council to discuss matters of state with your President. I had heard you were in Washington and wished to see you. How did the hearing go?"

"About like normal," O'Neill said.

Teal'c's eyes showed concern. "That poorly, then? Were there any casualties?"

"Yes, if you count my pride," O'Neill said. He feigned hurt feelings. "And who says that 'bad' is the norm for me, anyway?"

Teal'c stared at O'Neill, expressionless.

"Right, good point," O'Neill said. "Let's go get some dinner and I'll tell you all about it."

Teal'c gave one of his respectful bows. "I would like that. Will you be joining us, General Carter?"

"Don't mind if I do," Carter said. "We don't see enough of each other anymore." She embraced Teal'c. "It is very good to see you."

They left the office building and caught a cab to a local Italian restaurant. Fortunately, the place wasn't crowded and the hostess seated them well apart from the other patrons, meaning they could speak about their concerns with less chance of being overheard.

"I'm kind of surprised about your proposal for combing the Air Force and Navy into a single service," Carter said.

"Yeah, me too, actually," O'Neill said. "We've got two _Daedalus_ class ships with all Navy crews, not to mention those new stealth frigates. Even their inexperienced personnel are turning in better overall efficiency than the USAF personnel. Much as it pains me to admit it, the damn squids just have a knack for it."

"Well, I guess it makes sense," Carter said. "Operating a spaceship requires a crew to be able to keep their ship running and combat capable while away from home base for months at a time. Up until the _Prometheus, _the Air Force didn't have any systems like that._"_

"Exactly," O'Neill said. "The submarine service especially seems to have the touch for it. Spaceships and submarines, after all, both operate in hostile environments for extended periods of time. Don't worry, though, my plan doesn't involve me getting my title to changed to Admiral."

Carter grinned. "Good to know, sir."

"I had actually planned for the Space Navy to have an internal division between ship crews and fighter squadron personnel. USSN pilots would be drawn from the Air Force and would maintain their current rank structure. Ship crews would be drawn from the Navy and would maintain their rank structure," O'Neill explained. "It sounds confusing, but it allows our people to maintain some of their military traditions. That's always a good thing, especially at times like these."

Teal'c nodded. "Indeed. A warrior must know not only who he is, but where he came from, and who came before him."

O'Neill waved dismissively. "It's all academic anyway, they're never going to agree to it."

"About that. Do you really think going public is wise?" Carter asked.

"We're going to have to at some point," O'Neill said. "There's a good chance this war could come to our own soil. In fact, it's damned likely if Colonel Caldwell's report is accurate. People need the opportunity to prepare. If parts of Earth or, God forbid, the entire planet is occupied, we need people who are willing to resist to have the means to do so. We can't prepare the population for resistance if they don't know what's coming."

Carter nodded, but worry darkened her features. "You know things are bad when we are talking about guerilla resistance and occupation."

"Yeah," O'Neill muttered.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Lieutenant Colonel, retired, John Sheppard sipped his whiskey in silence.

He idly flipped through the channels on his TV, not really seeing or caring what was on. This was not surprising considering how much whiskey he'd already downed.

The date was August 30. His least favorite day of the year. The day that he threw away everything that he believed in. Certainly, his downward spiral from respected Air Force officer to drunken bastard hadn't happened all at once. The events of August 30, however, had set in motion his eventual, inexorable descent.

He supposed it was juvenile to sit around feeling sorry for himself all the time, but he truly didn't know what else to do. And he'd been it doing for several years now. Long enough that he wasn't sure he remembered how to be any other way anymore.

He was jolted from his morose thoughts by a pounding knock on his door. He considered not answering it as he had the last dozen or so visitors.

"John," he heard a muffled female voice. "It's Teyla. Please open the door."

He groaned. The last thing he needed was yet another reminder of his own personal failings.

"John, please," Teyla repeated.

He was tempted to ignore her, but Teyla had been too good to him for too long to be treated so coldly. He placed the photo he had been holding in his hand face down on his coffee table and stumbled over to the door and opened it. "Teyla," he said.

"John...have you been drinking?" Teyla asked.

He stood aside to let her in. "Maybe a little," he slurred.

"A little?" she questioned.

"Hey," he chuckled with feigned humor. "It's 5 o'clock somewhere isn't it?"

"Perhaps, but it's 8:30am here and you've already got more alcohol in you than a distillery," she scolded.

"Sorry, mom," he said. Sheppard regretted it as soon as it was out of his mouth, but there was no taking it back. "Look, I'm sorry. Why don't you come sit down?"

She nodded and seated herself on his couch next to him. "John, Ronon and Rodney are worried about you. I'm worried about you."

"There's no need to worry about me," John said. "In fact, it's you all that should be worried. You're the ones still endangering yourselves on a daily basis, going through that damn Stargate. I got out while the getting was good."

"I don't understand that, John," Teyla said. "You could've had any posting or assignment you wanted."

"I'm posted right where I want to be," he chuckled.

"I'm being serious, John," Teyla's voice was stern. "What happened to you?"

"It's not important," John replied.

Teyla eyed the face down photograph on the coffee table. Gingerly, she picked it up and smiled immediately.

It was a photo from their second year on Atlantis. It had been taken during a celebration that the people from Earth called "New Year's Eve". Everyone had had about four or five drinks too many. Sheppard was in the picture riding piggyback on Ronon's shoulders. Both men held bottles of booze in each hand. To their right was a glassy eyed but smiling Elizabeth Weir. She was holding herself upright by draping an arm each across Teyla's shoulders to her left, and across Dr McKay's shoulders, to her right.

Teyla openly grinned. That had been such a fun, if excessively rowdy, evening.

John chuckled. "That was one hell of a party. Completely against regs too. I'm surprised Dr. Weir allowed it, much less participated. It must've been my bad influcned. I had an epic hangover from that one."

"Dr. Weir confided in me later that she had been what you on Earth call a 'party animal' when she was still in school," Teyla said, setting the photograph down on the coffee table. "Apparently, she had more experience with that sort of thing than we realized at the time."

"That's hard to imagine isn't it?" John asked, turning somber.

"She was an amazing person," Teyla said.

"Yes, she was. Or rather, she is, depending on how you look at it," he said bitterly. "In any case, I doubt you came down here to reminisce about old times."

Teyla sighed. "No, I didn't. Please come back to the Air Force. It's not exactly public knowledge, even among those with clearance to know about the Stargate program, but something is going on with the Wraith. The people in charge seem to think it's going to come to a head soon."

Sheppard chuckled. "The Air Force hardly needs me. I doubt they'd want me back anyway."

Telya shook her head. "This isn't like you, John. You were such a good leader for us, and clearly a patriot, someone who would fight for his people. Good leaders are needed now, more than ever."

"A good leader?" he spat angrily. Teyla leaned back from him, surprised at his burst of anger. "I am many things Teyla, but a good leader is not one of them!"

"How can you say that?" she asked, incredulous.

John didn't answer, he merely went back to staring at the photograph on his coffee table. And in that moment, Teyla understood.

"There was nothing you could've done for her, John," she whispered.

"Like hell there wasn't!" he shouted. He jumped up off the couch. "I get why we sent them through the space gate. It was the hardest thing I ever did standing by and watching it happen, but I could do it knowing that if it was the real Elizabeth, we might've yet gotten her back."

"But we didn't. We just left her, Teyla," he said bitterly. "It was bad enough losing Captain Holland in Afghanistan, and then Lieutenant Ford. But this is worse, Teyla. We left her out there cold and alone. She's not even dead, not really. It'd be easier to handle if she was."

Teyla had another sudden epiphany.

"John," she whispered. "I can't believe I didn't see it sooner. Elizabeth was more than just a friend to you, wasn't she?"

Sheppard didn't answer. His jaw clenched and Teyla could see the tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

"After we lost her the first time, there was the clone. And then as a replicator. Oh, John. What you must've went through, I can't imagine-"

"No, you can't," he interrupted.

She reached out to him. "John it's OK to-"

"NO!" he said, recoiling from her. "I can't do this. I won't do this. Please, I'm sorry Teyla. Just go. I can't deal with this right now."

The hurt in Teyla's eyes pierced John's heart. "John-"

"Please, Teyla," he whispered. "I can't."

She nodded and rose from the couch. "I will always be your friend, John, no matter what. If you need me, call, and I will come."

Without another word, she left. Sheppard collapsed back onto his couch and stopped trying to hold back his tears.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: This chapter ran on a lot longer than I had intended. It may be far too wordy and technical in places. I might make some major changes to this one. I'd appreciate input on it._

_Backstory notes: For those that may not remember, the Oranians are the quasi-reptilian aliens that Daniel Jackson encountered in the SG1 episode "Prometheus Unbound". Also, the "Netu mission" refers to the SG1 episode where the team infiltrates Sokar's planet that is reminescent of Hell._

**Chapter 4**

"Do you have the merchandise?" the mercenary demanded.

"Yes, yes, right here," Mr. Olo said, sitting a case on the table between them.

The Oranian mercenary looked askance at the case, but went ahead and opened it. Inside was several containers of clear, bubbly liquid. The Oranian removed one of them, opened it, and poured it into a beaker he had brought with him. Mixing in a few other chemicals, the solution turned a bright red.

The Oranian smiled. Without a word, he motioned to the two other Oranians standing behind him. On a stretcher-like board, they brought over a non-descript metal case. "20 kilograms of weapons grade naquadah, as agreed."

Mr. Olo nodded. "You understand of course, that we will need to conduct our own test. Serenia, if you wouldn't mind," he nodded too his dark haired assistant.

Serenia ran a hand held sensor over the naquadah, scanning it for any imperfections, tracking devices, or impurities. After a full minute of scanning, the device beeped and a green indicator lit up on its small screen. She nodded to Mr. Olo.

"Then our business is concluded," the mercenary said. "It was a pleasure."

The Oranians boarded their Tel'tak. The ship looked like it had seen better days. Sounded like it too, as it's drive weezed painfully as it powered up. After enough coaxing, however, the ship finally got in the air and boosted for orbit.

Mr. Olo removed a control device from his pocket and hit a switch. His own Tel'tak promptly decloaked a hundred yards from his position. The two took off at a brisk jog towards the ship.

Once they boarded, Serenia broke her silence. "You know, Daniel, I had no idea you would be so good at all this cloak and dagger stuff."

Dr. Daniel Jackson shrugged. "The Air Force doesn't have quite the need for archaeologists that it did when we first started using the gate, Vala. Time to report in." Daniel activated the ship's secure communicator. "Wolfhound Base, this is Cub 1. Come in."

"Cub 1, this is Wolfhound Actual. Go ahead."

"Mission accomplished. Returning to base."

"Copy that Cub 1."

Daniel smiled and Vala kissed him. "You have no idea how hot you are when you act all military."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Wolfhound Base was a small installation situated on a frozen wasteland of a dwarf planet. The star system had no stargate, and the small world was so far from it's star that said star was difficult to pick out from the other stars in the sky, even at noontime.

The surface temperature never got above -375 degrees Fahrenheit. It was remote, inaccessible, and well hidden. The system's primary was a very young, very hot, F class star that threw out so much radiation that detecting the base from any significant distance would be impossible. It was the perfect base of operations for a covert US intelligence operation against the Lucian Alliance.

Daniel walked into the main control room to find Agent Malcolm Barrett. "Agent Barrett."

"Good job, Doctor. I'll have to say, I didn't know you would be so good at intelligence gathering work, but it seems to suit you," Barrett said.

Daniel chuckled. "Vala told me almost the same thing when we started on our way back. She wondered why I didn't take an easier job, one that involved a desk and less risk of certain death."

"That's a good question," Barrett said.

Daniel shrugged. "I thought about it. Truth is, however, I just can't imagine sitting on my laurels on Earth. Not after everything I've seen. I need to be in the fight."

Barrett nodded. "I know how you feel. So, the mission was a success?"

"The mercenary handling the transaction didn't even try to check for tracking devices. It likely wouldn't have helped him if he had. The Lucian Alliance would have a hard time countering Asgard derived surveillance tech, even if they knew what to look for," Daniel said. "We tracked his ship's location on our way back. He hasn't met with his handler yet, but it shouldn't be long."

"Maybe we tagged the right one this time," Barrett said.

"Any of your other sources turn up any detail on what the Alliance is up to?" Daniel asked.

"Yes. And no. The Alliance is fairly large. Not as large as the Free Jaffa and nothing like the vanquished System Lords. Still, they have a lot of operations running at any given time. In other words, they're _always_ up to several somethings at once," Barrett said. "Unfortunately, we have to simply ferret out everything we can because we can't know what's important or not until it's all been gone over by the analysts back home."

"Being a spy just isn't as glamorous in real life as in the movies," Daniel mock complained.

Barrett chuckled. "No, it isn't. Real intelligence work involves long hours of pouring over mostly useless information, looking for a needle in a stack of needles. You and Vala have done well, why don't you two get some rest?"

"I think I will," Daniel said, yawning. "We can look for needles in stacks of needles tomorrow."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"I think we got a break," Barrett said.

Daniel looked up from his book. "What is it?"

"Listen," Barrett said, pressing a button on his laptop.

"...and the final arrangements have been made," a commanding voice said.

"That's Jorgan, current leader of the Lucian Alliance," Barrett put in.

"Not a very friendly sounding sort," Vala said.

"Yes," said the Oranian mercenary. Daniel easily recognized his voice. "I am to meet our ally's advance party in eighteen hours."

"Good. Don't concede any more than is absolutely necessary, but secure the alliance and move forward with their proposed plans," Jorgan said.

"Understood. The Tau'ri won't have a chance."

Daniel met Barrett's eyes. "Please tell me we know where this meeting is happening."

Barrett shook his head. "No, but we do have the tracker on the mercenary, so we can follow him, even when he's in hyperspace." Normally, there was no way to detect a ship in hyperspace from normal space. The Asgard receiver they had at Wolfhound Base could track one of its own beacons through hyperspace, at least under optimal conditions. The technology in that tracking device was cutting edge, even for the Asgard. It was a miracle Area 51 had been able to build the thing even with the complete Asgard database at their disposal.

"Problem is," Daniel said, "he appears to have docked with his Ha'tak. The _Pensacola_ is a fine ship, but she's not really up to that sort of battle." The ship assigned to support Barrett's operation was of a new class of frigates that had just entered service. While the 'standard' frigate design was intended for raiding and patrol missions, the _Pensacola_ was one of a class of stealth frigates. It sacrificed weaponry and shields for speed and stealth. Given it's relatively small size and sophisticated new power systems, it could cloak without the assistance of a ZPM, at least for a time.

If the meeting was to take place on the mercenary's Ha'tak, however, there was little they could do. All the speed and stealth in the galaxy would not permit them to breach the Ha'tak's shields and board the ship, or simply beam out the mercenary. Beaming someone out of the ship was probably impossible anyway; technologies capable of denying sensor lock on an individual without a transmitter were becoming ubiquitous. The days of beaming nukes on to enemy ships were over, as were the days of snatching badguys from their own bridges.

Barrett considered for a moment. "We still have the tracking beacon planted. Maybe, if we're lucky, we can use the device to eavesdrop on their communications."

"That's assuming they don't meet face to face, and I don't think we can count on that," Daniel said. "You heard what he said. They're planning something that sounds pretty catastrophic for us."

"If you have an idea Daniel, I'm all ears."

"The _Pensacola's_ cloak is impenetrable to a Ha'tak's sensors, right?" Daniel asked.

"As far as we know," Barrett said carefully.

Daniel kicked into excited professor-mode. "OK, we shadow the mercenary's Ha'tak. When he drops out of hyperspace, we drop out as well, beyond his sensor range. We cloak and proceed at sublight."

"So, we stalk them," Vala purred. "I'm already liking the sound of this."

"And when we reach them?" Barrett asked.

Daniel cleared his throat. "We grapple onto their hull and board them."

Barrett facepalmed. "Do you have any idea how many things could go wrong with that plan? Even assuming we could clamp on and board, once they figured out what was happening all they'd have to do is start their engines. The difference in in the inertial dampening fields on our ship and theirs would cause the _Pensacola _to be ripped in half when they started accelerating."

"Right," Daniel said. "So, when we board, we immediately go for the engine room and disable the ships engines."

"It's too dangerous," Barrett said. "We should request reinforcements from Earth. There's a Jaffa colony not far from here, we might even be able to get their help."

"I know it's a risk," Daniel said with urgency. "But you heard what they said. Something is going down, soon, and it won't end well for us if we don't find out what it is before it's too late and you know as well as I do that we won't have time to round up reinforcements. It's only a matter of time before the mercenary finds the bug we planted. When that happens, we lose him."

Barrett turned and looked at the map display. An angry red dot traveled at FTL speeds on the map across the firmament. "This is insane. But...I think you may be right. I'll gather the team together and we'll hammer out a plan of attack. Normally I wouldn't ask you to be part of a combat mission, but we're going to need everyone if this is to have a chance to succeed."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Daniel said.

"You're so hot when you act all military," Vala flirted.

Barrett facepalmed again.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Drop out of hyper and rig for silent running," Commander Terry Stanton said.

The _USS Pensacola_ made the transition from hyperspace drive to running cloaked in normal space as quickly as it could conceivably be done. Which wasn't quite fast enough for Commander Stanton. The _Pensacola_ was one of the ships the US military had decided should be crewed by Navy personnel, specifically, submarine personnel. Stanton was the consummate fast attack submarine skipper, which was one reason he'd been chosen for this command. The _Pensacola's_ mission of operating stealthily for long periods, away from home, was a paradigm that the Silent Service was very familiar with.

"Cloak engaged. We're running silent," the Chief of the Boat said.

"Thank you, Chief," Stanton replied.

The problem was that the _Pensacola_ couldn't stay cloaked indefinitely. The ship's cloaking device was just a step short of experimental and required its own separate power supply. The engine room mounted four additional Mark 3 Naquadah generators for this purpose. Only two were needed to run it, but the ship was designed with redundant systems. If one of the generators broke down or was lost due to battle damage, a backup could be powered up. That was assuming the unstable Mark 3's didn't blow up the rest of the ship, of course.

The power requirements were extreme, even by modern standards, and the cloak and its power sources generated a lot of waste heat. This would normally not be a concern since the Asgard designed heat dissipation systems could keep up with the heat generated by the ship even during combat. However, to maintain stealth heat couldn't be radiated away normally, as the signature would be visible to passive infrared sensors. As a result, the cloak could not be operated for more than 14 hours at a single stretch or Very Bad Things would start to happen, starting with the crew being literally broiled alive.

None of that sat well with the military side of Stanton. His last assignment had been as commanding officer of the _USS Cheyenne_, a _Los Angeles_ class fast attack submarine. His old command would routinely submerge after leaving port, and stay submerged (and thus, invisible) for its entire deployment.

That sort of constant silent running was not possible for the _Pensacola_. The cloak also could not be engaged while in hyperspace, so there was always a chance of being detected when trying to do a stealth entry of a potentially hostile star system, as he was doing now. Further exacerbating the problem was that the cloaking device was bulky and inefficient compared to the ZPM powered system the _Daedalus_ mounted. This cut into internal volume that could've been used for more shields or weapons, thus leaving the ship at somewhat of a disadvantage even against conventional ships of similar size and technology. However, since _Pensacola_ was not intended to slug it out with enemy warships, this wasn't as severe of a problem as it might seem.

One place they hadn't had to cut corners was on engine power. _Pensacola_ was faster than all fiery hell. She could run circles around any known warship. She didn't have the legs to run down an F-302 in a straight up pursuit, but the difference between them wasn't as great as one might imagine.

_At least we got the new railgun system,_ Stanton thought.

Experience with the Goa'uld and, especially, the Wraith had shown the military a couple of things about space warfare. One of those hard lessons had been that if it could be seen, it could be killed, usually in short order. The early warships Earth fielded had carried heavy anti-ship missiles, based on existing ballistic missile designs, and equipped with naquadah enhanced nuclear warheads. The warheads themselves were highly effective. The _Daedalus_ had once disabled a Wraith hive ship with a single hit. The problem was that they'd had to flush their entire missile complement to saturate the ship's defenses enough to get that single hit. The missiles were enormously easy targets to see in space. There was still a lot of debate by the brass and the R&D folks on how to redress the problem. One proposed solution was to use missiles with electronic warfare packages to act as decoys and jammers. The idea was to confuse enemy detection enough that at least some of the missiles would get through. This was a logistical problem as it relied on expending enormous quantities of ammunition. Even with this method, large numbers of missile with warheads would still be needed to score hits. Though Earth's supply of weapons grade naquadah was better these days, the material was still very expensive, thus the logistics of the situation didn't support this solution very well. Electronic warfare did work to reduce fighter losses to acceptable levels. Early engagements against the Wraith had shown that without powerful electronic warfare suites, F-302s were dog meat for a warships defensive weapons. Another proposed solution was to rely solely on Asgard plasma-beam weapons for capital ships. The plasma-beam weapons were large, however, and didn't scale down very well to a ship the size of _Pensacola,_ which probably explained why the Asgard went by the 'bigger is better' rule of naval architecture_._ They were also insanely expensive, and were thus likely to be reserved for use only on the largest, most powerful ships.

A third proposed solution, and the one implemented for _Pensacola_ and her sister ships, was a modified rail gun system. Pensacola had a spinal mount railgun. The railgun was much larger than a normal anti-ship railgun. It drew much more power and could accelerate a larger projectile to higher velocities. Unlike a standard railgun, however, this railgun didn't rely on striking its target with a hypervelocity projectile to do damage. Instead, the spinal mount railgun fired a projectile with a naquadah enhanced nuclear warhead in its core, the same warhead used on the early anti-ship missiles. Railgun rounds generally weren't interceptible by active defenses because they had no active electronic emissions to detect and track. This new railgun round would have some minimal electronic signature, chiefly from the radar it mounted that was part of its proximity detonation fuse. It was expected that at least some these would be intercepted but that the hit rate would be much, much higher due to its relatively very small active emissions signature and high velocity.

The R&D types has dubbed it the Nuclear Rail Gun, or NRG. The name had stuck.

It was an elegant solution, in Stanton's opinion. Though it had been proposed for general use, it was uniquely suited to a ship like _Pensacola_ since it gave them a real weapon that could conceivably damage or destroy an enemy warship, and did it in a package small enough to be crammed (just barely) into a ship her size at an acceptable cost. It was not without disadvantages, however. Ships in combat had a tendency to not stand still while you tried to blow them up, and the NRG's projectiles didn't have a guidance system. It was only effective at extremely short range and, like all other weapons Earth ships mounted, could not be fired while cloaked.

The finicky nature of a somewhat experimental design bothered the military man in Stanton. But the view out of the bridge's viewport made it all worth it for his adventurous side.

"That's amazing," Lieutenant Commander Chetry, the helmsman and weapons officer said.

Pensacola was settling into orbit around a super massive gas giant in the unnamed system they'd tracked the Oranian mercenary to. Spectography had confirmed the presence of large concentrations of neon in the gas giant's atmosphere. The gas giant orbited very close to a very hot star, and the intense solar radiation excited the neon in the planet's atmosphere. It glowed in beautiful, but seemingly randomed, multi-colored patterns all across its upper cloud layer.

This was the real reason Stanton had agreed to this assignment. He had always been the kind of person who was naturally an explorer. He always wanted to know what lay beyond the next hill, and the idea that he was the first to see it gave him a child-like thrill that he never got tired of.

"It is amazing, Lieutenant Commander. And maybe later, there will be time to study this properly, but for now, let's stay on task," Stanton said.

"Aye aye, sir," he replied.

"Ops, any sign of our target?"

"Other than the tracking beacon Dr. Jackson planted, no sir," Lieutenant Andrew Williams said. The ops officer was a young, severe man. He seemed more like a computer at times than a person. That analytical and severe nature, however, is what made him so good at his job.

Stanton nodded. "Let me know as soon as we get anything on passives."

Agent Barrett stood to the right of Stanton's command chair, and pressed his lips together in concern. "It's possible they may have found the tracking beacon and dumped it in space."

Stanton nodded. "Possibly. I can't say that I'd be too broken up about the situation if they had, either."

Barrett smiled. "Believe me, I think it's a bit crazy too. I tried to talk Jackson out of it."

Stanton looked up. "You're in command of this operation. Why didn't you just tell him 'no'?"

"He can be persuasive," Barrett chuckled. "But actually, I think he's right. We're out here to gather intelligence on the Lucian Alliance and to test the capabilities of this new class of ship. This will be an excellent test. Although, this particular plan is a bit more...daring than what I originally had in mind."

"I have to admit, I was a bit surprised this operation was his idea," Stanton said. "He doesn't strike me as being particularly gung-ho."

"Have you read his file?" Barrett asked.

"Skimmed it," Stanton said.

"You should read it thoroughly. Some of the missions he's been on almost defy belief," Barrett said.

"Yeah, I did see the report on the Netu mission. That was some pretty serious, derring-do, crazy hero shit," Stanton said.

"Funny, he doesn't look much like a steely-eyed adventurer or hero," Barrett said.

Stanton smiled. "Most heroes don't."

"Contact," Lieutenant Williams said. "Designated Sierra 1, picked up on passive gravitics. It appears to be in stationary orbit on the far side of the gas giant from us."

Stanton sat up straight. "Can you identify it?"

"Not positively, but gravitic sensors say its mass is right for a Ha'tak class mothership. The tracking beacon and Sierra 1's location match up too," Williams said.

"Any active emissions?" Stanton asked.

"Very little. I'm getting an intermittent radar pulse. CIC says its consistent with a Ha'tak's short range search radar. Otherwise, it appears to be at standby power levels," Williams reported.

"Whoever he's waiting for," Barrett said, "probably hasn't arrived yet."

Stanton stroked his goatee. "Maybe. I had hoped they wouldn't be running any active sensors."

"We are cloaked," Barrett said.

"Granted. Still, it's one thing to fool active sensors from a distance. It's quite another to do so from literal rock throwing range," Stanton countered.

"I understand," Barrett said. "If you think it's best we scrub the mission we will."

"Not yet," Stanton said. "As you said, one reason we're out here is to see what this ship's new systems can do under real conditions. This was always going to be a dangerous mission. Still, a few precautions are in order. Chetry, pre-load a round in the NRG. If we are detected, decloak the ship, fire immediately, and retreat. Do not wait for my order."

"Aye aye, sir. But we'd normally need to charge the NRG's capacitors to get maximum velocity. Firing immediately like that, and the shot will be considerably slower than even a standard railgun round," Chetry replied.

"Understood," Stanton said. "Still, we are cloaked and if he does detect us, it's going to be at close range. The NRG round won't have far to travel. Now, compute an intercept course for docking with the target."

"Course computed," Chetry said.

"Execute." Stanton hit his comm button. "XO, is the boarding party assembled?"

"We're ready, skipper," Lieutenant Commander Aaron Robinson replied.

"We're closing in for hard dock in 10 minutes. Get to your positions," Stanton ordered.

"Commander! Contact in close proximity to the target. Designated Sierra 2. He just lit off his sublight drive," Williams said.

"Identification?"

"Unknown. It will break the horizon of the gas giant shortly, however. I could align one of the telescopes for a look," Williams suggested.

"Make it so."

Stanton brought up the feed from the telescope on command chair's arm display panel. After squinting, looking for a flash of light, a bit of movement, anything, he finally spotted it. The telescope operator found it as well and zoomed in on it.

"Damn," Barrett said.

"Contact Sierra 2 is a Wraith heavy cruiser," Williams confirmed.

"What in God's name is doing here?" Stanton spat. "How the hell did it even get here?" Stanton waved a dismissive hand. "It doesn't matter. Ops, does he see us?"

"I don't think so. Energy readings suggests he's spinning up his hyperdrive..."

Before Williams finished saying it, a hyperspace window opened and the Wraith cruiser disappeared into FTL.

Stanton's comm beeped. "Skipper, XO here. We saw the feed. Should we abort?"

"No," Stanton replied with authority. "Whatever is going on here is probably big. This mission just got a hell of a lot more important. We proceed as planned."

"Four minutes to hard dock," Chetry said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Wish I could go with you," Lieutenant Commander Robinson said.

"Feel free," the Lieutenant Commander Mike Atchison said with a grin. "I could always use more help."

"The skipper made it pretty clear that I am to have my ass back to my station in auxiliary control by the time the shooting starts."

"Party pooper," Atchison said. He glanced back towards Daniel. "Sure you wouldn't prefer an M-4?"

"Nah, I'm comfortable with this," Daniel said, loading a magazine into his P90.

Atchison could appreciate the diminutive bullpup submachine gun. Daniel wasn't primarily in a combat job, though the unassuming anthropologist had become remarkably skilled with the weapon, mostly out of necessity. Still, Daniel wasn't exactly a gun nut.

Atchison, however, _was_ a gun nut. He had learned to shoot at the age of four on his parents' farm in Tennessee. He was shooting competently in IDPA by the time he was 11, and was competitive in Service Rifle and NRA F-Class by the time he was 13. At age 15, he won the Service Rifle National Match at Camp Perry, the youngest person to ever win the award. By that time, he was a far better shot than any instructor the US military had on staff.

All of this meant that when it came to the practical science of firearms, the country boy from Tennessee was an expert. The P90 Daniel favored had its advantages. It was light and handy, and very easy to shoot well for people who didn't handle firearms often but had jobs that required them to go about armed. The weapon's 5.7x28 cartridge left a lot to be desired, however. Its performance was acceptable at very close range, largely due to the specialized armor piercing ammo available to the military, but even with this advantage its ability to stop an attacker was suspect at best. He did not have much faith in the cartridge, however well made the weapon itself was.

He did have faith in the M-4A3's 5.56 NATO cartridge. Though the 5.7x28 was high velocity for a handgun cartridge, it was still a handgun cartridge. It simply could not wreak the sort of havoc on an enemy that the standard issue 5.56 NATO could. Atchison had personally used the M-4A3 to great effect over the years against terrorists, drug runners, tyrants, and other assorted assholes.

However extensive his list of accomplishments were and however gung-ho he could be at times, Mike Atchison did not look down on men like Jackson, where some soldiers would. He knew that some in the military didn't take him seriously, thinking him soft. Atchison thought no such thing. In fact, he didn't look down on anyone. He didn't hold himself out as someone special and he genuinely cared about his brothers in arms. It was this and his hard charging nature that made him a good leader. Some soldiers followed their leaders because they were ordered to. His men followed him because they _wanted_ to.

The Navy had recognized this and made him the commander of SEAL Team 2. And now, here he was, in space defending his country and his entire planet from aliens. He considered it a worthy cause, and counted it as a personal honor and privilege to be given the opportunity to fight these battles.

"Three minutes," his radio said.

"Alright, it's go time. When we get a solid seal, we're going in fast and hard before they can react," he announced to the team.

_Pensacola_ was equipped with a specialized airlock intended to be used for boarding. It was five times as wide as a standard airlock, allowing five or six people to enter an enemy ship at once. It also mounted a powerful shaped charge that could punch a hole through the hull of many ships if it was used in the right location.

The plan was for the SEAL team and _Pensacola's_ shipboard Marine complement to use the breaching charge the moment the airlock had sealed itself against the Ha'tak's hull and immediately attack. Unfortunately, they couldn't unload directly into the Ha'tak's engine room, but they were close; only one level down. There was a stairwell near the entry point that would provide access to the engine room. The plan was simple: SEAL Team 2 would ascend the stairwell and attack the engine room; _Pensacola's_ Marines would fight a rearguard action at the base of the stairwell to prevent reinforcements from attacking the SEALs from behind. Once that was done, the party would meet in the engine room and use the rings to transport themselves to the Pel'tak. That's where the mercenary would probably be. Slap a transmitter beacon on him and use the _Pensacola's_ transporters to pull everyone out.

Normally, the transporter technique wouldn't work. However, it was known that the technology the Lucian Alliance had adopted that disrupted transporters didn't work as well from inside the shields as outside. _Pensacola_ would be inside the shield and with a transporter beacon, a quick beam out should work.

A heavy metallic clang heralded contact with the Ha'tak. A light turned green on the airlock's hatch.

"We're good!" Atchison said. "Time to open this bitch up!"

A concussion wave traveled up the still sealed airlock as a square section the Ha'tak's hull was blasted open. The airlock cycled open, and five Navy SEALs charged down the airlock.

They emerged into a corridor. Three crewmen opened up immediately with their staff weapons, hitting two of the point men immediately. Atchison lined up one of the men in the reticle of his M-4A3's holographic sight and gave him three 5.56 NATO rounds to the chest. His team finished the other simultaneously.

"Alpha team on point. Let's go," Atchison shouted once all his men had boarded. "Home plate, this is Atchison. Successful breach. We are moving to towards the first objective. Light contact with what appears to be engineering staff. Two wounded, transport directly to sickbay." With a flash, the two injured men were gone.

Atchison was not pleased. Sometimes things just didn't break your way, but two wounded right off was _not_ the way he had wanted to start this mission. The entire team made the stairwell without seeing anyone else, however.

"Jackson, Vala," Atchison motioned. "Come with me to the engine room. While my team is planting C4, you two can try to tap into their systems. Gather any useful intel you can find."

Jackson nodded.

Atchison lead the team up the stairwell, again, no contacts. That changed, however, when they came to the entrance to the engine room.

The engineers knew something was up and had armed themselves. A hail of zat gun and staff weapon blasts pinned the team on either side of the doorway. Atchison glanced around the corner briefly.

"About twenty, most armed with zat guns. A few staff weapons."

The SEAL Team was outnumbered two to one. For them, that was normal.

"Roberts, Sanders! Flashbangs, then attack. You five on that side of the door go left, we will go right."

The two SEALs pulled two flashbangs each from their equipment vests. A few clicks later, the pins had been pulled. Roberts called out, "fire in the hole!" as he and Sanders tossed the grenades.

The flashbangs made a ridiculously loud blast, stunning most of the engineering crew. Atchison and his team went through the door in a blur. He settled into a rhythm. Put the sight on an enemy's chest, three round burst, move to next target, repeat.

In a bare three seconds, it was over. Daniel hadn't even gotten into the room, much less aimed his P90, before the defenders were dead.

"Wow..." Daniel said. "I knew you guys were good but..."

Atchison grinned at the compliment. "Get on those computers Jackson. SEALs, emplace explosives!"

Vala swore as she activated one of the terminals. "It's all encrypted!"

Daniel handed Vala a crystal. "Just copy as much of it as you can, we'll try to decrypt it later." Daniel produced another, identical crystal, and did the same.

"Alpha leader, this is Bravo team. We are under heavy attack!" Atchison's radio chirped.

"Captain Lassiter, can you hold for two more minutes?" Atchison asked.

"I don't know, we've got nine casualties, four are KIA. They clearly waited until they had an overwhelming force before trying us out," he shouted. Atchison could hear an M240 machine gun pounding lead downrange over the radio. "Just hurry."

"Alpha leader this is Home Plate," Atchison's radio announced. "We have a problem. The Ha'tak is powering up its drives!"

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"We have got to undock, sir," Chetry half shouted.

"We are NOT leaving those men behind," Stanton countered. "Give me an option!"

"Sir, the intertial dampeners on this ship can't take the acceleration of such a large vessel. We'll be torn apart!"

Stanton ground his teeth and thought furiously. The _Pensacola's_ intertial dampeners were much less powerful than the Ha'tak's. They simply couldn't withstand the forces of the Ha'tak accelerating. Unless...

"Commander Chetry, do you think you could power our sublight engines and match their maneuvers?" Stanton asked.

Chetry turned and looked at Stanton like he'd lost his mind. But before he said something that was likely to get him a captain's mast he said, "It just might work. Our inertial dampeners will give some cushioning, just a little time to react to course and acceleration changes. It's stupid-dangerous, though, sir."

"Understood. Do it."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The Ha'tak went to maximum acceleration, and Chetry very nearly lost the _Pensacola_ right there. But he kept up, if just barely, and managed to not break the airlock connecting them to the Ha'tak. The Ha'tak's helmsman didn't take long to figure out what was happening, and he started bouncing the ship in random directions, but Chetry was good and just managed to keep up with him.

"Just like the rodeo back home," Chetry said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"C4 armed and ready in all respects, sir!" Robinson said.

"Good. Everyone, fall back to the corridor."

The team returned to the corridor, and covered their ears. "Fire in the hole," Atchison shouted. Then he threw the switch.

The C4 wasn't emplaced to destroy the sublight drive or the reactor systems. Doing so would've destroyed the ship. Instead, the explosives were placed on the control runs. Without computer control, the drive would shutdown to prevent run away acceleration. It wouldn't take the crew long to repair such relatively minor damage, but it would shut down the ship's engines long enough for their purposes.

A thunderous boom emitted from the engine room, blowing debris into the hall.

"Much appreciated, Alpha team," Stanton said over the radio.

"Alpha leader, this is Bravo leader. We are being overrun! Falling back to your position,"

"Damn," Atchison said. Before he even got it out of his mouth, the remaining Marines came around the corner in an orderly retreat pattern. One man would kneel, laying covering fire, as another ran back. This leapfrogging continued until they were in the engine room.

The SEAL team moved back in to the engine room. "Jackson, close the blast doors if you can!" Atchison shouted.

A large contingent of Lucian Alliance troops rounded the corner into the SEALs and Marines kill zone. The defenders cut down the first wave in a hail of gunfire.

"They're going to change tactics soon enough," Atchison said. "We need these doors closed, Jackson!"

"I know," he said, not even taking his eyes off the console.

"Incoming!" one of the Marines called.

Another crescendo of gunfire met the attackers, but they were smarter this time. They used the sides of the still open doorway as cover, just as his team had done when they assaulted the engine room. One of the SEALs took a staff weapon blast to the head. Atchison grimaced. "Medic!" He knew, however, there was no way the SEAL had survived.

With a crash, the blast doors lowered. "It won't hold them for long," Jackson said. "We should probably retreat."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd like to complete my mission," Atchison said.

"We copied a lot of data, we may have what we need once we figure out how to decrypt it," Jackson argued.

"And we may not, doctor. Possible Wraith involvement makes this too important. We have to be sure," Atchison replied.

Jackson nodded. "Alright, the rings are over here," he motioned.

"Alpha team, to the rings. Marines, hold them off as long as you can, but when you can't any longer, have _Pensacola_ beam you out."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

He couldn't believe it. Just minutes after the Wraith emissary had left, these infernal Tau'ri had shown up. How they had managed to board his ship undetected, he had no idea. It hardly mattered. His troops were closing on the engine room from all directions. They'd be surrounded and killed in the crossfire.

Or they'd better be, at any rate. This would look bad as it was, but if he didn't at least butcher his attackers, Jorgan would certainly have him killed.

"See if you can bring the engines back online by routing the commands around the damaged control runs," he spat at the navigator. "I want those engines back and that damned ship off my hull!"

He heard the rings activate. Probably his ground team commander coming back to report. He started speaking as he turned. "Kelgesh, you incompetent twit, have you—oh."

The Oranian found himself facing a human dressed in the black and gray battle dress they tended to favor. It aimed and fired a weapon straight at his chest.

He looked down, expecting to see blood. Instead, he saw a sticky gray substances, with a device embedded in it. A red indicator light was flashing.

"What is-"

The last thing he saw before being beamed directly to _Pensacola's_ brig was SEAL Lieutenant Commander Mike Atchison waving bye to him.


	5. Chapter 5

_Backstory note: Anise of the Tok'ra was a character that appeared in the SG1 episode "Upgrades" as well as a couple of others._

**Chapter 5**

The Oranian mercenary sat perfectly still as Daniel and Barrett observed from behind one way glass. He appeared to be sweating

"Not very talkative," Daniel said.

"We have our ways of changing that," Barrett said.

"Uh, excuse me, but we're supposed to be the good guys here. That means no torture," Daniel said.

"Oh, grow up. You let me tie you up to the bed and torture you all the time," Vala quipped.

Daniel grimaced. "Err...that's not...the same...forget it." Daniel cleared his throat. "He seems to be sweating. Is that normal for them?"

"Somewhat," Barrett said, continuing as if he hadn't heard way too much detail about Daniel and Vala's bedroom escapades. "He hasn't had a fix in a few hours. Early withdrawal symptoms."

"I see," Daniel said.

"No torture. He's basically a classic junkie, so we're going to give him what he purchased from you while you were undercover. His drugs. In exchange, he'll tell us what we need to know."

"About that," Daniel said. "What exactly is the chemical composition of the drugs?"

"It's soda," Barrett said.

"What?" Daniel asked.

"Something about the carbonation and type of sugar in it causes it to effect Oranians about the same way heroin affects humans," Barrett said.

"That's...interesting," Daniel said.

"Don't worry, he won't be permanently harmed. We've got a za'tarc detector and an expert technician on hand so we'll know when we've got the truth from him," Barrett said. "In fact, I think you two have met."

"Yes," Daniel said all too neutrally.

"Showtime," Barrett said, heading for the interrogation room.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Barrett opened the door to let his companion in ahead of him. "Ladies first," he said.

"Thank you," she said.

The Oranian mercenary didn't even deign to look at either one of them.

Barrett motioned to his companion. "This is Anise of the Tok'ra. I am Agent Malcom Barrett, NID. We 'd like to have sit and have a nice talk."

The Oranian eyed Anise. "I will not speak with a Goa'uld."

Anise's eyes showed no emotion. "I am not a Goa'uld. But even if I were, it is irrelevant. You are here as our prisoner and will do as you're told until we are done with you."

Barrett shivered. Most people would've delivered an implicit threat like that to try to demonstrate their superiority. Anise didn't. For her, that superiority was self-evident and needed no explanation. The fact that she had deigned to answer him at all was amazing.

At least that was the act. And it _was_ an act. Barrett wasn't sure of that when he'd first worked with her, but enough time around her had showed him the truth. Still, her demeanor could be quite chilling when necessary.

"Don't mind her," Barrett said, playing the good cop to Anise's bad cop. "She's always like this. Look, I know you've had a bad day, and it's not even your fault. Hadn't had your juice in a while either. Tell you what, give me a little something, anything, and we can fix that." Barrett held up a can of Sprite and cracked it open, looking questioningly towards the Oranian the whole time.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"They're good," Vala purred. "Especially Anise."

"You have no idea," Daniel said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Barrett raised General Landry on a subspace communicator.

"Agent Barrett, I read your report," General Landry said. "Makes for some disturbing reading, son."

"Yes sir," Barrett replied.

"Do you think it's credible?" Landry asked.

"Unfortunately, yes sir," Barrett sighed. "Even without the confirmation of the za'tarc detector, the fact that we have clear sensor readings of a Wraith heavy cruiser in the Milky Way strongly suggests the Oranian is telling the truth."

Landry sighed. "This confirms our other intel. Dammit."

Barrett's eyebrows flew up. "Other intel?"

"The _Daedalus_ found a Wraith shipyard a couple of weeks ago. They've found a way to reverse engineer a ZPM, or something like it. Their ZPMs are not nearly as good as the genuine article, but good enough to make their ships pretty scary and give them the ability to travel here. We estimate it's three years for them to make the voyage, but they can do it. And unlike the ZPM powered hive that attacked us a few years back, they can build these new ships in numbers," Landry explained.

"And they've made a pact with the Lucian Alliance," Barrett said.

"God help us," Landry said.

"There's something else," Barrett said. "Dr. Jackson and Vala Mal Doran continue to try to decrypt the files they copied from the Ha'tak. They've had only partial success. However, they think that the Lucians may attack us to prepare the way for the Wraith."

"Any idea on where and when?"

"No," Barrett said. "He's not even sure if what he found was definite plans or just proposals."

"Do you think they'll go for covert ops, or try a conventional attack?" Landry asked.

"Given their history, I'm inclined to say both," Barrett said.

"So, we have no idea where, in what strength, when, or even if they actually are going to attack?" Landry asked.

"I'm afraid so," Barrett said.

"This situation just keeps getting worse," Landry held up a placating hand. "I'm not bitching at you. You, Anise, and your team have done an outstanding job."

"Thank you, General."

"Give my regards to Daniel and Vala. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have to find some way to break this to General O'Neill."


	6. Chapter 6

_Back story note: Yat'Yir was one of the Jaffa high councilors during the Ori arc of SG1._

**Chapter 6**

The High Council's outer chamber was impressive in its own way, Teal'c reflected. The building lacked the sort of ostentatious design and decoration one would expect in a Goa'uld palace. No massive Greek-style marble columns, no Egyptian style art, no east Asian décor. What it lacked in grand design it made up for in purpose.

The floors were made of hardened marble. The hallways only had sparse decorations, all of them commemorating the victories of the Free Jaffa. The displays were also not ostentatious. Most contained only a small plaque describing the event or battle it commemorated. Traditional weapons and armor were sparsely seen on display as well in the spartan hallways. From the hard marble floors, to its strong walls and high ceilings, the High Council's chambers exuded one thing above all.

Determination. It was a central theme in every Jaffa's life. They were a people who simply did not know how to quit. It was reflected in every part of their young society. Even in the lines of the High Council Chamber's architecture could it be seen. The Chamber's tall and imposing walls practically announced the Jaffa's collective defiance of any who would every try to oppress them again.

Of this much, Teal'c approved. If only the Jaffa could let go of past grudges from when they were slaves to false gods, he might have felt complete satisfaction.

Brooding on that unhappy thought, he turned a corner to find the man he had come to see. "Master Bra'tac," Teal'c greeted his mentor and friend.

"Teal'c, it is good you have come," Bra'tac replied. "How has your stay been?"

"It has been agreeable. Certainly I find Chulak a more pleasant world than Dakara. If I must deal with politics, at least I can do so in an environment that is not so...arid," Teal'c said. "I certainly find it welcome to be able to visit Rya'c."

Bra'tac smiled. "I understand the boy has been promoted to squad leader," Bra'tac said.

"Indeed. He is a natural leader and his prowess in the arts of battle grows with each day. I am, however, concerned. He is headstrong at times. He often acts before he thinks," Teal'c said.

Bra'tac smiled and slapped Teal'c on the shoulder. "This sounds much like someone I used to know."

Teal'c smiled and bowed, acknowledging the point his mentor had just scored.

Bra'tac's smile left him and he sighed. "When we freed ourselves of the Goa'uld, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. We've had two Council elections since we instituted democracy, and still the political wrangling and backstabbing continues. I had hoped we would be more united as a people, but it has not happened."

"General O'Neill once said something me that I did not understand at the time," Teal'c began. "He said that 'politics sucks everywhere'. I am beginning to understand his meaning. When is the Council to meet?"

"Tomorrow at midday. Most of the items on the agenda are of a mundane nature. However, there will be discussion of our relationship with the Tau'ri. I fear it may not go as we would prefer," Bra'tac said.

Teal'c's eyes went wide with concern.

"Peace, old friend. I do not think anything drastic is being considered. Still, some of the Councilors are advocating a more isolationist stance with respect to the galaxy in general, and the Tau'ri and Tok'ra in particular," Bra'tac said. "Some think that we are too reliant on others, and that we should stand on our own."

"Standing on our own does not mean closing ourselves off from our neighbors," Teal'c protested.

"I know, but many of the Councilors are set in their ways. We will have our work cut out for us," Bra'tac said.

"This is not right," Teal'c said. Teal'c had a positive opinion of the Tok'ra, despite how arrogant they could be at times. But the Tau'ri he viewed as blood brothers. "Master Bra'tac. No one in the entire galaxy had any reason to trust or help us. They, in fact, had much reason to hate us. The Tau'ri stood by us in our greatest hour of need when _no one else would._"

Bra'tac grinned ruefully. "I only wish the Councilors had the sense of honor that you do."

"What do the isolationists intend to do?" Teal'c asked.

"Their biggest push is to redefine our alliance with the Tau'ri. They don't intend to break it off, but they wish to severely limit our treaty obligations. I suppose it's hard to blame them on some level, the losses suffered in the Ori Crusade were severe. Our fleets have not yet recovered. The thinking among their number is for the Jaffa to stand apart and to use the time to rebuild our strength," Bra'tac explained.

"That is absurd," Teal'c said with disgust. "The Tau'ri were also weakened during the Ori Crusade. Now, more than ever, is when we should stand together for mutual support!"

"Recent Tau'ri tensions with the Lucian Alliance are reinforcing their position, Teal'c. Some of our people believe that the Tau'ri are impulsive and are likely to drag us along with them into trouble. The divided nature of their world certainly doesn't help the situation, either," Bra'tac said. The isolationists also wish to severely limit foreign trade and travel. They believe we are too dependent on the Tau'ri for weapons for our ground forces and technological assistance from both the Tau'ri and the Tok'ra for our fleets. They feel that imposing limits will force us to develop these things for ourselves."

Teal'c had to admit that that was something of a problem. There were few Jaffa scientists or engineers. The Goa'uld didn't allow their slaves to have an understanding of advanced technologies, only an understanding of how to use them. As such, the Free Jaffa were having a difficult time building even basic industries. A few manufacturing facilities were turning out staff weapons and heavy weapons for the Free Jaffa's ground armies, but the quality was suspect and the numbers pitiful. The Jaffa were still reliant on the Tau'ri for arms and ammunition. Teal'c had extensively used the weapons of the Tau'ri and found them to be very effective, but as a Jaffa, he did believe that they needed to learn to provide for their own defense.

Unfortunately, what Bra'tac had said about the lack of Jaffa engineers and scientists was painfully accurate. There were none before the rebellion. Even the few Jaffa that had taken up those professions had relied upon Tau'ri and Tok'ra teachers to learn their skills. Even then, the results were not encouraging. Jaffa culture...did not encourage such pursuits. The value of a Jaffa was bound up in his prowess in battle. Jaffa that chose other roles were not exactly considered lesser people, but there was undoubtedly an undercurrent of prejudice against them.

In any case, the proposals of the isolationist faction were not the answers to that problem.

"You have a plan?" Teal'c asked.

"Yes. Of the twelve on the Council, five favor the isolation measures and five oppose the measures. There are two undecided. Since it requires a majority vote of the Council to change policy, a tie vote would effectively be a victory for our side. We must convince one of the undecided Councilors to vote with us," Bra'tac said.

"Who are the undecided votes?"

"Yat'Yir and Sa'vel," Bra'tac replied.

"Yat'Yir is not likely to support anything I am in favor of. He still does not trust me where my allegiances are concerned," Teal'c said.

"Indeed. Bakal has his ear," Bra'tac said. Bakal was one of the new Councilors and most vocal agitator for distancing the Free Jaffa from the Tau'ri.

"I do not know of this Sa'vel," Teal'c said.

"He is the former First Prime of Micouta, a minor Goa'uld. Micouta was among the System Lords that once ruled on the Tau'ri. His worshipers knew him as Mixcoatl. He was a cruel ruler, practicing frequent human sacrifice. Sa'vel had been First Prime for only a few months before he rebelled and joined the Jaffa Rebellion. Apparently, he did not find Micouta's appetite for blood tolerable," Bra'tac said.

"When are we to meet him?" Teal'c asked.

"Later this evening. But first, we shall meet with Yat'Yir," Bra'tac said.

"For what purpose?"

"Teal'c, I know you believe it to be a waste of time, but we should still speak with him. He commands a lot of respect among our people. Needlessly alienating him by snubbing him is not wise," Bra'tac explained.

"As you say," Teal'c replied.

"He is waiting for us. Let's go," Bra'tac said.

Bra'tac lead Teal'c down a hallway to Yat'Yir's private office. The door was slightly ajar. Bra'tac held up his fist silently, motioning for Teal'c to be quiet.

Bra'tac knew something was not right. He knew it in his bones as assuredly as he knew that the sun would rise tomorrow morning in the east. Silently, he pushed the door open.

The door flew open and an unseen force shoved Bra'tac, hard, to the ground. Before Teal'c could even move, he felt an impact to his forehead, and everything went black.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"That...did not go to plan," Teal'c said.

"Indeed," Bra'tac said.

Teal'c sat up and found himself in a medical ward. Like with other scientific disciplines, there were few Jaffa doctors at this point. The doctors were from the Tau'ri.

A tall, blonde haired woman walked over to Teal'c when she saw he was awake. "Teal'c, I am Dr. Alicia Samuels."

"Doctor," Teal'c said, bowing his head slightly.

"Are you in any pain or discomfort?" she asked.

"I am not," Teal'c replied.

"Now, a better question might be would you tell me if you really were?" she said.

Bra'tac let a bit of a laugh escape his lips, doing his frantic best to convert it into a cough mid-flight. "Sorry, my mouth is a bit parched. Excuse me."

Teal'c stared at Bra'tac balefully. "I am fine."

Dr. Samuels nodded. "The tests I ran agree. You both took a pretty hard hit, but that Jaffa vitality seems to have stood you both in good stead. You're both free to go."

"Thank you," Teal'c said.

Bra'tac stood and smiled at the doctor. "I can see right now you have been here for some time and have learned our ways."

"Your people are as stubborn as a damned Missouri mule," Dr. Samuels said.

Bra'tac wasn't sure what a 'Missouri mule' was, but he caught her meaning clearly enough.

"Thank you for helping us. Could I ask about Councilor Yat'Yir? We were on our way to see him when we were attacked," Bra'tac said.

Dr. Samuels's face becamne expressionless. "You might want to talk to one of the other Councilors about that."

"I see. We shall take our leave then."

The two left the medical ward to find Rak'nor waiting outside. "Teal'c," Rak'nor greeted. "I take it you are well?"

"We are fine," Teal'c said. "What of Yat'Yir?"

"Not here," Rak'nor said. "Come to my office."

The walk from the medical ward was a short one. They entered Rak'nor's office which was, technically, _Teal'c's_ office since Teal'c sat on the High Council. But since Teal'c had chosen Rak'nor to be his proxy when he was away (which was often) Teal'c had insisted Rak'nor be granted use of the office.

"Yat'Yir is dead," Rak'nor said without preamble. "They found him face down in a pool of his own blood. His throat had been cut."

Bra'tac sighed. "This does not bode well for us."

Rak'nor held up a placating hand. "Neither of you are suspected, despite it being common knowledge that both of you often disagreed sharply with Yat'Yir. The security systems here record everything, there is undeniable proof the two of you were innocent."

"Then who was responsible?" Teal'c asked. "Did the security systems record that?"

"No," Rak'nor sighed. "In fact, they recorded nothing. I have the playback here," Rak'nor motioned towards a computer screen.

Teal'c recognized the computer to be of current Tau'ri manufacture. He assumed the security system was also of Tau'ri origin. Rak'nor started the playback. The picture was bit grainy, but clear enough. Yat'Yir was seated at his desk, doing paperwork. There was brief shimmer, and then a cut formed out of nowhere on his neck, spraying blood everywhere.

"An Ashrak," Teal'c said.

Rak'nor nodded. "That is the opinion of our investigators as well."

The Ashrak were Goa'uld trained for assassination. They often carried personal cloaking devices, as this one apparently had.

"This is probably related to upcoming vote," Bra'tac said.

"I do not understand why the Goa'uld would've chosen to kill Yat'Yir," Teal'c said. "Yat'Yir favored isolationism. This would favor the few remaining Goa'uld."

"Perhaps it was not the Goa'uld," Rak'nor said. "Their empire is mostly gone, only a few small warlords survive. Perhaps it was someone else that the Ashrak was working for. Maybe the Lucian Alliance?"

"Isolation of the Free Jaffa would be favorable to them as well," Teal'c said.

"Perhaps it was petty revenge," Bra'tac said. "It's not as if Yat'Yir hadn't made enemies."

"Perhaps," Rak'nor said.

Bra'tac sighed. "This looks very suspect, Teal'c. While it's clear we are not responsible, it does look very convenient for our chief opponent to suddenly be removed from the equation."

"What should we do?" Teal'c asked.

"We will proceed with the vote as planned. I just hope that Sa'vel continues to support our side," Bra'tac said. He shook his head disgustedly. "I hate politics. It is a dirty, underhanded thing, not fit for an honorable Jaffa. Yet, those of us who retain our honor must remain a part of this system, or we lose the reigns of power to the honorless and the corrupt."

Teal'c stared at the still image of Yat'Yir's lifeless body, and something told him things were about to get a lot more complicated.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Lieutenant, you're up," Major Barnes said.

1st Lieutenant Amanda St. Crowe cursed the butterflies in her stomach into obedience. This was not the time to freak out or lose her cool, and she was more than a little bit annoyed with her own nervousness.

Amanda had worked and sweated hard for this opportunity, and she was determined not to mess it up. She was one of the few female Air Force Academy graduates that had qualified to fly aircraft in combat. The lack of women in combat arms in the Air Force was largely an artifact of combat assignments being male only up until recently. She had not experienced any degree of discrimination at the academy due to her gender, but not many women were interested in taking on the hard math courses demanded of a USAF fighter pilot. She had always been a bit of an odd duck in her family though, and she'd been willing to do what was needed to fly for the US Air Force. She'd even let her hair return to its normal color as opposed to the blue and pink she'd favored in high school. Her mother had been pleased by that aspect of her joining the military, believing that her natural hair color, being as dark as the night, contrasted much better with her flawless, pale complexion and blue eyes than the gaudy colors she'd been dying it.

She had received no special treatment while in the Air Force Academy, but a part of her had worked extra hard to make sure that any honors or accolades she received while in the academy were earned, and not given in some misguided attempt to increase female representation in the ranks of the military.

That hard work had paid off when she graduated and commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant instead of a 2nd Lieutenant. It was about to pay off again, if she could keep her jitters under control.

She mounted the stairs up to the F-15 simulator's cockpit and sat down in the pilot's chair with practiced ease. She strapped herself in, concentrating on the task trying to ignore the nervousness. The simulators were arranged inside a converted aircraft hangar, and she noted another officer across the room was climbing into one of the other simulators. She wondered who he was and if he was to be part of her test.

She had been approached after she graduated from the academy by an Air Force colonel named Davis. He had offered an assignment but couldn't tell her what her duties would be, saying that the information was classified. She had nearly turned down the offer right then and there, but Davis had been very convincing.

He had told her that what she would be doing was dangerous, but it was also vital. He had offered her a chance to make a difference for herself and for her country.

He had known exactly what to say to her to make her accept. _Bastard,_ she thought with a smirk.

Upon accepting her new assignment, she had been whisked away to Groom Lake Air Force Base and had undergone two weeks of testing. Some of it had been grueling, both physically and mentally. Being something of a prodigy, she'd smoked the mathematical and scientific aptitude tests. The others she wasn't so sure of. A lot of the tests were obviously psychological evaluations. These bothered her, as such tests didn't have clear cut answers. Give her a math or logic problem, and she was happy, but she didn't care for the ambiguity of the psych evaluations.

She didn't know how well she'd done on those tests, but apparently it had been well enough that they still wanted her for this assignment. Assuming she could pass their final test.

The simulator's canopy closed and the system booted up. A projection of an air field occupied her "canopy". Her radio crackled. "Alpha One, this is Tower. Cleared to taxi to Runway 45."

"Copy, tower," she said. She released the brakes and applied minimal thrust, rolling her simulated F-15C out of its hangar and onto the taxiway. Making the final turn, she lined the fighter up on the runway's center line and came to a stop. "Tower, request permission to take off."

"Permission granted Alpha One."

She released the brakes and then ran the throttle up to full afterburner. In a real F-15C, she'd be pinned solidly back into her seat but, as of yet, no one had figured out a practical way to simulate acceleration. The fighter jet accelerated like a scared cat down the runway. Once she had sufficient speed, she gently pulled back on her stick, taking to the sky. Without thinking, she retracted her landing gear, shutdown the afterburners, and went into a climb.

She leveled off at 5,000 feet. "Tower, this is Alpha One. Altitude is Angels 5. Orders?"

"Alpha One, AWACs has an unidentified aircraft on heading 137 degrees, range 100 miles. Intercept and make contact," the Tower said.

"Copy, Tower." She threw the fighter into a hard, right hand turn and headed towards the contact. She tied her fighter's radar into the aforementioned AWACs. The contact was heading directly towards her at a leisurely 300 knots. At that speed, it could be anything from a hostile Mig to a civilian airliner.

She sent an IFF challenge signal to the contact. All NATO aircraft had an IFF that would respond to the encoded challenge signal, making it possible for friendlies to identify each other in the thick of combat and, thus, keep friendly fire losses to a minimum.

Her IFF challenge received no response. _No help there,_ she mused. "Tower, this is Alpha One. IFF challenge went unanswered."

"Copy Alpha One. Attempt visual identification."

Amanda didn't like this. She had a sneaking suspicion someone was about to spring a surprise on her. Amanda didn't like surprises in general, so a little extra caution might be in order.

Amanda pulled back on the stick, gaining altitude. If something untoward was going to happen, she'd prefer to start out with an altitude advantage.

Time ticked by slowly until, at last, she got close enough to get a visual. The aircraft was an F-15C, same as the aircraft she was flying. "Tower, bogey is a Foxtrot One-Five-Charlie."

"Attempt to make contact, Alpha One."

"Unidentified Foxtrot One-Five-Charlie, this is Alpha One, please respond." She waited ten seconds. Annoyed, she tried again. "Unidentified Foxtrot One-Five-Charlie, this is Alpha One, please respond."

Nothing. "Tower, unidentified aircraft is non-responsive."

"Fly closer and attempt to get the pilot's attention, Alpha One."

"Copy," she said. Amanda dove and leveled off in front of the unresponsive F-15C. She rocked her wings, indicating that he should follow, but when she veered off, the other aircraft didn't follow.

And that's when her threat warning receiver screamed bloody murder at her.

She hadn't liked having an unidentified behind her, so she wasn't as thoroughly surprised as she could've been when her threat warning receiver indicated the enemy F-15C had locked on to her with its targeting radar.

She hit her countermeasures, dumping a half dozen chaff packs and flares, then broke left and low in a made, high g-force turn that would've had her nearly blacking out in a real aircraft. The missile that the enemy had fired couldn't quite track her through her turn, and missed.

Her opponent was quick, though. Before she even leveled off from her evasive maneuver, she saw the tracers of cannon fire streaking by her canopy. Lighting her afterburners, she broke hard left and high, attempting to put some distance between her and her pursuer. Her enemy, flying the same aircraft, could undoubtedly match her maneuver, but he wasn't clairvoyant either. By the time he had engaged his afterburners and followed, she had gained some ground on him, enough that dodging his cannon fire was easy enough.

Not so much the miss4ile he fired. He fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder at her, a heat-seeker. The sensor package in the Sidewinder was passive. It had no radar emissions to betray its location, so her threat warning receiver didn't alert her.

She had, however, been paying attention to her rear facing cameras, and she caught the missile's contrail as it leapt from a hard point on the enemy aircraft. She killed her afterburners, dropped more flares, then inverted and dove at the last moment, just barely out maneuvering the deadly missile. She re-lit her afterburners as soon as the missile missed, and her speed climbed rapidly.

The enemy pilot had anticipated her this time, and he had even made up ground.

_OK_, she thought. _Time to try something else_.

She shut off her afterburners, and continued to weave, throwing off the other pilot's aim, just barely evading his deadly cannon fire. The enemy plane gathered more speed, and started gaining ground rapidly.

Amanda hauled back on the stick, leveling off from her steep dive. Her speed was considerably less than her enemy's, and that actually worked to her advantage. The enemy pilot attempted to match her maneuver, but his greater speed reduced his maneuverability; he was unable to stay on Amanda's tail. He overshot Amanda, and finally, she was looking at her enemy's tail.

She quickly locked on and popped off two Sidewinders. The two little missiles streaked towards their target, hungry for destruction. The enemy pilot had apparently been paying as good attention as she had, however, as he dropped flares and evaded the missiles easily.

His speed was still quite a bit higher than hers, and his speed advantage increased when he went to full afterburner, leaving her quickly behind. She put on her afterburners to pursue, but he simply had too much of a lead.

The enemy fighter's speed dropped precipitously as he cut out his afterburners and even used his airbrakes. He executed a hellishly tight turn, one that was cringe-worthy when she considered the gees he'd have been pulling in a real aircraft, and she found herself nose to nose with her enemy.

Both aircraft locked on and salvoed a half dozen missiles at each other altogether. Amanda was good, but there were limits to everything. After a heroic job of evading the first two missiles, she lost track of the last one and it struck her left wing. The canopy's display went red and the simulator shutdown.

Dejected, she opened the canopy and clambered out, with the assistance of a grinning Major Barnes.

"That was a damned good bit of flying, Lieutenant," Major Barnes.

"Not good enough," she muttered, as they descended the ladder to the concrete floor.

Major Barnes chuckled. "Don't take it so hard. You didn't fail the test."

"I didn't?" she asked, hopefully.

"No. I mean, granted, it would've been even better if you'd won, but don't take it too hard. No one ever beats him," Barnes said.

"And you better damned well remember that, Barnes," another voice announced.

Amanda stiffened to attention. Seeing the eagles on his flight suit she nearly blanched. _He's a full colonel. Don't say anything stupid_, she fretted.

Her right hand went up in a crisp salute. "Colonel," she said, as she got a good look at him. He was of somewhat above average height, close cropped brown hair, pretty good looking too even if he was fifteen years her senior. _Stop that_, she chided herself.

The colonel returned her salute in a far more relaxed manner. "At east Lieutenant." He held out his hand to her. "Colonel Cameron Mitchell."

She gulped at the idea of that level of informality with someone of such rarified rank, even if it was just a friendly handshake. She just managed not to squeak like a frightened child as she took his hand and replied. "1st Lieutenant Amanda St. Crowe."

"I've got good news and bad news, Lieutenant," Mitchell said with a huge grin. "Good news is you passed!"

"Sir," she said. "I failed to defeat my opponent. I don't see how that constitutes a passing grade."

Mitchell chuckled. "Lieutenant, the test was not to see if you could shoot me down."

"Sir?" she asked.

"I wanted to see if you had any talent for close range dogfighting. It's a skill a lot of Air Force instructors skimp on in the era of BVR missile engagements. For the assignment you're being considered for, however, it's a necessity. Close range dogfighting is more of an art than a science, Lieutenant, and I wanted to see if you have the touch for it. And you do," Mitchell said.

"Thank you, sir. What's the bad news?" she asked.

"Bad news is, if you accept the assignment, you'll have to fly under my command." His voice turned ominous. "I run a tight unit, Lieutenant."

Barnes coughed loudly behind them, doing his best to camouflage a guffaw. "Excuse me. Sir."

"Everyday we do PT at 0400. Breakfast at 0500. Sim training from 0600 to 1200. We do not break for lunch. Then more PT from 1200 to 1400. Sim training from 1400 to 2200 hours."

Amanda blanched. She'd be lucky to get four hours of sleep per night.

Mitchell continued. "And if anyone in my squadron doesn't meet my performance requirements, he will sweep the entire runway of this airbase. He will also write, one thousand times on the chalkboard in the briefing room, 'I will not disappoint Colonel Mitchell again, for he is a demi-god among men.'"

Amanda gulped.

Barnes couldn't hold it in any longer, and busted out laughing. "You are so full of shit, Mitchell."

Mitchell grimaced and turned to Barnes. "Come on, Barnes. I almost had this one completely convinced."

Mitchell smiled and turned back to the young Lieutenant. "Nothing like all of that Lieutenant. However, we will maintain a rigorous simulator training schedule, as our lives will depend on us being at our best. Everyone in my squadron will get in at least four hours per day in the simulators, and that includes me. No writing lines on the chalkboard, though."

"Yes, sir," she said meekly.

"At ease Lieutenant," Mitchell said. "You are wound up awfully tight."

Amanda released a sigh. "Sorry, sir. I don't even know what this assignment is, but I was told it was for the best of the best. I want this assignment, sir."

Mitchell nodded. "If you didn't have that kind of drive, Lieutenant, you wouldn't have made it this far. But before we go any further, I feel obliged to give you one more chance to back out. I'm not going to think any less of you if you do because it's a lot to ask. I can't tell you what our mission is until you accept, and once you accept, you're in for the duration. It will be very dangerous. It will involve frequent combat sorties. You will be away from home for weeks, maybe months at a time, and generally you won't even be able to call or write home."

Mitchell continued, deadly serious. "You may not survive it. Many have come before you, and a lot of them didn't come home."

Amanda supposed anyone else would've thought long and hard about accepting an assignment like this, but she'd had an idea that it would be demanding when Major Davis first recruited her. She'd made this decision already. "I want in, sir. I didn't sign on the dotted line blind to the dangers of military service."

Mitchell smiled. "Good, I was hoping you'd say that. This way, please," Mitchell motioned.

They walked towards the back of the hangar. A large door stood in their path. Mitchell pulled out a radio and keyed it. "Open it up."

Motors whirred and the door ponderously slid open. She followed Mitchell into the back of the hangar. Parked inside, was the most unusual fighter aircraft she'd ever seen.

And it was definitely a fighter, of that she had no doubt. It's graceful, curving, predatory lines announced its purpose with utter clarity.

The fighter was shaped vaguely like a bird. The cockpit sat at the apex of two wings that curved downward. Slung under those wings were obvious hardpoints for missiles or other weapons.

"This," Mitchell motioned towards the parked fighter, "is the F-302. It is, by far, the most advanced fighter aircraft ever produced on this planet. And it's rather more advanced than most of those produced on other planets, come to think of it."

Amanda tore her eyes away from the fighter and met Mitchell's eyes. "Um…sir?"

"Lieutenant, this fighter was built from technology we reverse engineered from alien sources," Mitchell said.

"Alien? As in…aliens? Little green men?" she asked, incredulous.

"Well, they're not green," Mitchell explained. "But, yes, aliens as in sentient lifeforms that are not from Earth."

Amanda could scarcely believe it. She looked back towards the wondrous fighter and nearly squealed like a little girl when she realized she was going to be flying a fighter just like this one.

"This is seriously the coolest thing I've ever seen," she said. Remembering herself, she stiffened back to attention. "Sir."

Mitchell suppressed an urge to roll his eyes at her excessive formality. "She's not just an aircraft either," Mitchell said. "She can fly into outer space too. In fact, that's where most of the action takes place."

"Action?" she asked.

"You see, Lieutenant, we are not alone in the universe. Some of the people out there are friendly enough. Others…are not. We are not officially at war at the moment, but the political situation with some of the factions out there is such that we will be, whether the brass wants to admit it or not. Even so, there are still frequent skirmishes with hostile powers," Mitchell explained.

Amanda just stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Welcome to Wonderland, Alice," he chuckled.

"Thanks, I guess. Sir," she said.

"Feel free to check her out," Mitchell said.

While she busied herself examining the F-302, Barnes walked up next to Mitchell. "She's good," Mitchell said, not looking back at Barnes.

"Good enough to shoot you down," Barnes said.

"She didn't shoot me down…officially," Mitchell protested.

"Get over yourself," Barnes said. "The only reason you won is because your missiles hit first. There was no way you were dodging that last Slammer. She had you dead to rights."

Mitchell wanted to argue, but he couldn't. "Just keep it yourself. Encouraging the ego of a young fighter pilot is normally not a good thing. Still…she's damned good. Maybe the best raw talent I've ever seen. I just hope she lives long enough to develop that talent."

Barnes nodded, then grinned. "You got your ass handed to you by a girl."

"She's not a girl Barnes, she's a commissioned officer in the US Air Force," Mitchell said. "And I didn't get my ass handed to me."

Barnes snickered.

Mitchell sighed in exasperation. "I'm going to get you Barnes."


	8. Chapter 8

_Backstory note: Cimerria is a world that SG1 first visited in the Season 1 episode "Thor's Hammer". It's the planet inhabited by the descendants of the Vikings._

**Chapter 8**

"Unscheduled activation," Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman announced into the intercom.

The Stargate started spinning in its usual cadence, locking in each chevron one at a time. Before the second chevron had locked, General Landry materialized at Harriman's shoulder.

"Terribly inconsiderate," Landry said.

"What is, sir?" Harriman asked.

"I was just about to leave to have dinner," Landry complained. "Why can't the rest of the galaxy quit at 5pm like us?"

Harriman grinned. "I could lodge a complaint, if you'd like."

Landry chuckled. "You do that. Now, let's see who wants to talk."

The final chevron locked in, and the gate activated, the even horizon forming in what appeared to be a geyser of water. The iris closed with gratifying speed, securing the gate against intruders.

"No IDC code. Receiving a radio transmission, however," Harriman said.

"Let's hear it," Landry replied.

"Thi…..Gar…f…Cim…"

"Can you clean that up?" Landry asked.

"Trying, sir," Harriman said.

"Thi..is…wyn, of calling the ...au'ri. We are…attack by the Luci..n All…nce."

"I think it's from Cimerria," Harriman said. "In fact, I think it's Gairwyn."

Landry nodded. "The Viking descendants. Open the iris Sergeant." He hit the transmit button. "Gairwyn, this is Stargate Command. If you can hear this, we've opened our iris. If you are under attack, try to make it to the gate."

"I can't. There are too many and they are approaching the gate. I wouldn't leave my people even if I could," Gairwyn replied.

Landry sighed. He didn't like the idea of sending his men against a defended Stargate, but the US did have a mutual defense treaty with Cimerria. And simply not helping them just didn't sit right.

"Walt, do we have any ships in the area?" Landry asked.

"The _USS Iliad_ could be there in two hours."

Landry grunted. It sounded like it would be too late by then. Dammit. He hit the intercom button. "Colonel Lorne to the briefing room."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Lieutenant Colonel Evan Lorne jogged into the briefing room. General Landry was already waiting for him as was Major Clara Daniels, his second in command. _How did she get here so fast_, Lorne wondered.

Lorne made his way to the table and noticed the Stargate was still active. "I take it we have trouble?"

Landry nodded. "Cimerria is under attack and has requested our assistance. I have ordered the _USS Iliad_ to divert to Cimerria, but it will be another ninety minutes before they arrive and, the way things sound like they are going, it might be too late by then."

"Unless we do something about it," Lorne filled in.

"Right the first time," Landry beamed.

"What's the current situation?" Lorne asked.

"It's hard to get any details through the radio jamming the attackers are using, but we're pretty sure it's the Lucian Alliance. The Cimerrians are fighting for all they're worth, but about all they have are small arms. They've been successful so far in repelling Lucian Alliance soldiers from taking the Stargate, but their forces are being devastated by repeated air and orbital strikes, which they have no defense against," Landry said.

"Not to be a Debbie Downer," Major Daniels said, "but our own forces are subject to the same air and orbital attacks that the Cimerrians are. There's no realistic way we can win this battle."

"Normally, I'd agree, but in this case, you don't have to win. Once the _Iliad_ enters the system, we can drive the Lucian Alliance forces out. What we can do in the meantime, is evacuate Cimerrian non-combatants. I'd rather all the Cimerrians evacuate, but you know how they are. Viking warriors don't run from battle," Landry said. "You'll go in heavy this time."

"Armor and air defense?" Lorne asked.

"You got it," Landry assured him.

"I understand Ronon is on the base. I wouldn't mind having him along for the ride either, if he'll agree to it," Lorne said.

Landry chuckled. "I don't think that's really in question with Ronon. He's been getting pretty stir crazy lately. Higher authority doesn't really like me sending him offworld, but I can swing it this time."

Walter Harriman jogged into the briefing room. "Sir, we've managed to cut through the jamming. We're getting the feed from our observation post. The Cimerrians still hold the gate and the main settlement, but they're getting pounded by gliders."

"Put the strategic feed on the monitor in here," Landry said.

The large, wall mounted flat screen came to life, showing a map of the area around the Cimerrian gate. Green icons, showing Cimerrian troop concentrations, were hunkered down right in front of the gate, facing the shoal of red icons advancing on them. It was pretty clear that the Cimerrians were outgunned.

"Think you can hold that army off for ninety minutes?" Landry asked.

"It'll be tight, especially if we're evacuating civilians at the same time," Lorne said. "I'll need everyone we can spare."

"Then you'll have them. SG-1, you have a go. Be careful and good hunting," Landry said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Gairwyn, this is Landry," Landry said into the mic pickup. "Shut down the gate, we have reinforcements ready to assist you."

"Thank you. My people will not forget this," Gairwyn said over the radio. "Shutting down the gate."

With a whine and crackle, the gate shutdown. "Dial it up, Walt," Landry said.

Walt Harriman's hands flew over the keyboard, activating the gate's dialing program. The massive stone ring began its sequence, locking in one symbol after another. After locking in its final symbol, the gate reestablished its connection to Cimerria, but this time it was an outgoing connection that Lorne and his men could use to travel to the Cimerrian's assistance.

"Clear the vehicle ramp," Harriman shouted into the intercom.

Evan Lorne shuffled the various SGC personnel to the sides of the gateroom. It was a tight fit, but Lorne didn't mind.

One of the disadvantages of having the gate in an underground bunker was that it was difficult to move large, heavy equipment through the gate. Lorne had always thought they should've relocated the gate to Area 51 where there was more room to operate. The Air Force, however, hadn't asked him opinion on the matter and it was clear that the Powers That Be still valued secrecy above all else.

All that said, the military did give the SGC permission to do some renovations, renovations that Lorne had pushed for from almost the first day he'd been given command of SG1. A large vehicle garage was built underneath the gateroom. The floor of the gateroom now lowered on massive hydraulics, creating a ramp that vehicles could drive up. After the first couple of years on Atlantis routinely seeing his team getting it's ass kicked by Wraith infantry supported by Darts, Lorne had pushed for a way to rapid deploy heavier weapons and, with his increased stature and influence as commander of SG1, he'd gotten his wish.

Not that the modification of the SGC had been implemented solely at his urging, far from it. Lorne was pretty sure Generals Landry, Carter, and O'Neill had been applying the same pressure, as well Colonel Cameron Mitchell.

Lorne didn't much care about the political machinations that'd gotten it done, he was just happy it had happened.

"Deploying assault ramp," Harriman announced over the intercom.

Lorne watched as more hydraulics, this time mounted in the floor, whined into motion. The old sheet metal lattice ramp that had been installed in the early days of the program had been fine for personnel, but was insufficient for vehicle traffic.

That old rickety ramp was gone now, replaced by a ramp made of trinium / carbon alloy. Normally, it sat in the same position as the old ramp, perfectly fine for personnel to use. In its assault configuration, however, it extended a ramped section through the gate, suitable for larger armored vehicles. Smaller vehicles, like Humvees and LAV-25s could pass through the gate without it, but heavier vehicles like the Abrams tank required it.

The ramp's hydraulics whined, extending its downward sloped section through the gate's event horizon, establishing a stable ramp on the other side. "Ramp deployed," Harriman said. "She's all yours Colonel Lorne."

"Alright, listen up," Lorne said to the assembled troops. "Current situation is that the Lucian Alliance is attacking Cimerria. We don't know why they chose Cimerria, and it doesn't matter. They are a treaty ally of every nation that is a member of the IOA. From what we can tell, the Alliance has been bombing civilian targets with gliders and orbital strikes. Our primary objective is to evacuate non-combatants through the gate to the Beta Site. Once that's done, we are to try to convince the Cimerrian troops and leaders to evacuate with us, but knowing the Cimerrians, I doubt they will follow. Regardless, once the non-combatants are evacuated, we are to evacuate to the Beta Site. The heavy armored platoon will assault first and ensure the area around the gate is clear. Second, the LAV-ADs will move in. LAVs will proceed immediately to their designated destinations behind the Cimerrian line and dismount troops. The engineers will come through last and remain near the gate. Any questions?"

There were none. These personnel were all offworld combat vets and knew their jobs well. "In that case, get down to the garage and mount up. I will see you on other side."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The team, 82 in total, scrambled down the gateroom's vehicle ramp to their assigned vehicles. With the high pitched scream of a jet turbine, the first tank rolled up the vehicle ramp to the waiting Stargate.

The 61 ton M1A3 Abrams was an intimidating sight to behold. The vehicle was imposing even when parked and sitting still. The tank rolling up to the Stargate, however, was not sitting still at all.

A lot of the brass considered assigning heavy armor to the SGC to be overkill. Lorne didn't agree with that, however. Lorne subscribed more to the idea that there was no such thing as overkill. His experience with the Wraith had taught him that if it was worth shooting it, it was worth shooting it a lot.

Lorne watched the first three vehicles, all Abrams tanks, disappear into the gate. He would've preferred to be in the first wave, but Landry had made it clear that that was not going to happen. An assault against a hostile gate was confusing enough even under good circumstances, and Landry had insisted that his team leaders go in the second wave to reduce the chance of the team commander being killed early and disrupting command and control.

Ronon smiled at Lorne. "I don't blame you. I'd rather be first in too if it were my command."

Lorne smiled. Ronon certainly knew him well. "Yeah," he said. "It just doesn't seem right, sending people into danger without sharing it yourself. But, you rise to high enough rank, that's what happens to you."

Ronon nodded. "I never did make it that high in Sateda's army. I was OK with that."

"Alpha platoon to Lorne," Major Daniels said over the radio. "Gate is secure. You are clear."

_Finally,_ Lorne thought. "We're up," he said.

"About damn time," Ronon grunted.

The eight wheeled LAV-AD lurched as the driver put her into gear. The vehicle reached the top of the ramp and Lorne felt the familiar sensations of a gate transit overtake him.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The Abrams tanks rolled out of the Stargate onto Cimerria more or less unscathed. A few Lucian Alliance troops in a treeline fired over the Cimerrian defenders at the vehicles, but mere staff weapons did little more than burn the paint on the tanks.

The Abrams mounted some very good thermal optics, so it was without trouble that the Lucian Alliance soldiers were located in the treeline. Major Daniels ordered her tanks to stop short of the fighting trench the Cimerrians were hunkered down in and engage with their coaxial machine guns. The heavy vehicles sent hundreds of rounds of 7.62 NATO howling downrange into the Alliance positions three hundreds away. The rounds chewed up dirt, trees, and flesh alike. Before the second wave of LAVs even finished pushing through the gate, the Alliance's troops retreated.

Lorne dismounted his LAV and ran over to Major Daniels's tank. She had her cupola open and was surveying the battle field.

"Report," Lorne said.

"I think that was just a skirmish line," she said. "I suspect we'll getting an air strike soon enough."

Lorne agreed. He hit his radio. "Captain Reus, setup the LAVs for an air defense pattern. Expect imminent glider attacks."

"Yes, sir," his APC platoon commander said.

Lorne hopped down into the trench. The Cimerrian warriors still wore their old Viking style breastplates and most still carried a sword. However, they were all armed with M-4 rifles, provided at no charge by the US government. It made for an interesting anachronism, Lorne thought. He certainly never though he'd one day see Viking warriors in full armor, horned helmets and all, fighting alien invaders using modern weapons.

_I have a strange job,_ Lorne reflected.

"Gairwyn!" Lorne called out. After only a moment of searching, he found the woman he was looking for.

He'd never met her in person, but he'd seen photographs so he knew who he was looking for. The rugged, worn looking woman looked into his eyes and he saw fear but a lot of resolve. Lorne had read SG1's mission report and he knew the quality of the woman he faced. She was as dedicated and deadly a warrior as any who had ever lived.

Her dark hair was more liberally shot through with gray these days than all of those years ago when SG1 had first made contact. Lorne could see, however, she retained that same inner strength that made her an effective leader.

"You are leader of the reinforcements from Midgard?" she asked.

Lorne held out his hand in greeting. She grabbed onto his forearm, preferring the traditional handshake of her own people. "Lieutenant Colonel Evan Lorne, United States Air Force."

"I thank you for your timely arrival. I do not know what the Alliance hopes to gain by attacking us," she said. "We have nothing they could possibly want."

"It doesn't matter," Lorne said. "We're here to help evacuate your non-combatants."

Gairwyn's eyes hardened. "There are no 'non-combatants' among us."

Lorne kicked himself. It wasn't really the best way to address her, as they took martial prowess pretty seriously. "I understand. What I meant to say was that not everyone here is presently able to fight. We can get them out of here to a safe location that the Alliance doesn't know about."

Gairwyn's eyes twinkled. "How diplomatic," she said. "You are right, of course. I've already sent word back to the village for everyone not able to fight to assemble and be ready to move."

"We'd better get them moving then," Lorne said. "I have a feeling that the Alliance isn't going to leave us be just because we chased off their scouts."

Gairwyn nodded. "No doubt you're right." She motioned harshly to a young man. "Go back to the village, get our people moving towards the gate."

The messenger ran off at a dead sprint. "While he's doing that-"

"INCOMING GLIDERS!" Lorne's radio yelled.

"Down!" he shouted, dragging Gairwyn down to the bottom of the trench with him.

The screeching of gliders hammered his ears, as cannon blasts shook the ground. Though they were basically immobile in the trench, it was still a rather small target to hit and the gliders didn't use any guided weapons. Only a few blasts found their mark, but they were quite enough. The shrieking of men suffering from flash burns was enough to underscore that fact.

Lorne hit his radio. "Major Daniels, have the LAVs use their Stingers. We might not be able to stop the air attacks, but we can make them pay for them!"

"Yes sir!" she responded.

The gliders came around for another pass, but this time they didn't have it all their own way. The shrieking of the gliders was drown out by the roar of the LAVs light surface-to-air missiles lifting off.

The Stinger missile was only good against low flying targets. Gliders were capable of lifting into space and could quite literally outrun the missiles. If they had enough warning.

They didn't have anything like enough warning.

A dozen stingers lanced into the air, their infrared seekers bearing down inexorably on the heat signatures of Alliance gliders. There eight gliders in the squadron that was tormenting Lorne's men and the Cimerrians. Most of the missiles found their targets, and fireballs pockmarked the sky. After Daniels's launch, only two gliders remained. The two remaining pilots felt that discretion was the better part of valor and retreated towards the south.

Lorne stood, offering Gairwyn a hand up which she took gladly. "We'd better move quickly," he said. "Have your men hold the gate here. I will keep all of my infantry and half the LAVs here to help us hold. I'm going to send the other half of the LAVs and my tanks to push out towards the Alliance troops. We need to keep them out of range of gate for as long as possible, otherwise this is going to be a bloodbath." Lorne didn't like to think about what evacuating non-combatants would look like if the Alliance troops managed to take them under fire directly.

Gairwyn nodded. "May we fight well, Colonel."

Lorne returned to his command LAV and got on the radio with Daniels. "Major Daniels, I think it's time to push these bastards back a bit."

"I heartily agree," she replied over the radio from the lead Abrams.

"This is more your area of expertise than mine, so you'll lead the charge," Lorne said. "Try to push Alliance troops away from the gate. We don't need them shooting at civilians while we're evacuating. I'm going to remain here with Gairwyn's men."

"Roger that," Daniels replied.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Alright laides, let's roll. The enemy will not kill himself for us." Major Daniels said into her radio.

Her driver, PFC Donnelson, rolled his eyes, but obeyed her orders with speed. He switched to a private channel with the gunner. "I've never heard her so happy before," he said.

"Yep," the gunner agreed. "Sounds like the Old Lady's getting her kill on."

Donnelson chuckled. Major Daniels wasn't exactly crazy, clinically speaking, but her reputation for aggressive tactics was legendary even among armored cavalry commanders, most of which were already borderline crazy when it came to aggression.

Daniels's Abrams lead. While Landry had forbidden Lorne from being on the front, he had issued no such orders to Major Daniels, a situation she was completely happy with. Being an armor officer in the US Army's 37th Armored Regiment, she was accustomed to plunging into the fight alongside her brothers and sisters in arms.

Granted, she'd never expected to be leading her tanks and their crews into battle against aliens on another planet, but that was a minor detail as far as she was concerned.

The column of vehicles climbed up a hill just to the east of the treeline that Alliance scouts had been using. Daniels had considered running her vehicles right into the lightly forested area, but that environment was not the best for armored vehicles, and the nice clear hill with nothing taller than some long grass was a much better choice. She was somewhat concerned about the possibility of the skirmishers returning to the tree line which would place hostile infantry on her left flank, but she had confidence that Lorne's men and the Cimerrians would be able to keep that from becoming a problem.

Her tank crested the hill and Donnelson almost let out a yelp. "Contacts! Infantry in the open. _Lots_ of infantry in the open!"

"I see them," Daniels said. The tank's thermals told a grim story. There were at least a thousand Alliance soldiers on the ground heading towards the gate. "Load canister!" Daniels yelled.

She vaguely heard some clanking from the turret as her loader complied. "Canister loaded!" the loader called out.

Daniels got on her radio. "Bravo platoon, we've got a mighty shitload of infantry on the bottom of this hill and two landed Al'kesh. Stay on the reverse side of the hill and get set up to provide indirect fire support with your chainguns."

"Copy that," Bravo Platoon's commander called back.

"Target, heavy weapon at 2 o'clock," Daniels called out. The heavy weapon was a staff cannon, an immobile but powerful energy weapon. She didn't know how well the Abrams's armor would stand up to it, but she wasn't in a mood to find out.

"Target acquired," the gunner said.

"Fire!" Daniels called out.

Her tank's main gun belched fire as it discharged it's loaded round. The canister round was unlike the armor piercing rounds the Abrams normally fired. The canister round contained over a thousand 9.5mm tungsten balls, which in effect turned the Abrams's main gun into a big assed shotgun. It was useless against anything with even light armor, but against infantry in the open, it was ideal.

The tungsten shot overtook the staff cannon's crew before they even knew they'd been fired on. The effect it had on the cannon's crew and the troops near them didn't bear detailed description, especially if one didn't have a strong stomach.

"Direct hit!" the gunner called out.

"Advance!" Daniels ordered. The three lead tanks lurched into gear and moved forward. It was crazy, actually. The Alliance troops were short on heavy weapons and their Al'Kesh's may have been grounded, but the sheer number of them was such that attacking them was risky.

But Gairwyn needed time to get her people evacuated, and Daniels intended to give her that time. And if she got to blow the piss out of some badguys while doing it, so much the better.

"Target, grounded Al'kesh 12 o'clock, 600 meters. Load sabot!" Daniels yelled.

"Sabot loaded!" the loader called out.

"Fire!"

Tank crews informaly referred to the sabot round as the 'silver bullet'. It was a depleted uranium dart. It had no warhead and needed none. The sheer kinetic energy when it hit a target was such that it would cause armor plating to shatter and jets of molten metal to be released inside the target. Granted, it was never intended to be used against anything like an Al'kesh, being designed to destroy other tanks, but if those Al'kesh got off the ground things could get ugly in a hurry. She didn't need to destroy the Al'kesh, just disable or delay them.

The depleted uranium dart impacted the Al'kesh's bridge and smashed through its windows without even slowing down. Jets of molen metal flew all over the bridge, burning the crewmen inside alive. Computers were smashed and electronics disabled.

Unfortunately, the crew of the other Al'kesh was quicker off the mark. By the time Daniels's tank had fired, it had lifted off and gained enough altitude such that her main gun couldn't elevate high enough to target it.

_Dammit,_ she cursed to herself. _That is going to be a problem._

"Target, heavy weapon in the open!" Daniels called out, spotting another staff cannon emplacement. "Load canister!"

"Canister loaded!"

"Fire!"

Another swarm of tungsten balls turned a heavy weapon crew into hamburger. Her gunner also started raking the Alliance troops assembly area with 7.62 NATO rounds from the tank's coaxial machine gun. Then her other two tanks began to fire canister rounds into the midst of the enemy, and the chaos became complete. Some of the enemy dove for non-existent cover, others threw their weapons down and ran. Discipline completely evaporated, and Daniels knew any damage she was going to do she had to do now.

Her tanks fired a continuous stream of machine gun fire and canister rounds into the confused enemy. The machine guns were bad enough, but the canister shells harvested them like bloody wheat. She railroaded the Alliance troops into a disorderly retreat and hounded them, but her luck finally ran out.

"Target, heavy weapons 3 o'clock!" Daniels yelled. "Load canister!"

"Canister loaded!"

She was about to give the order to fire, when the cannons opened fire. There were two of them, and she didn't know how in the hell any of the Alliance commanders had cajoled their men into stopping their headlong retreat long enough to get them set up.

Two blasts hit her number two vehicle, turning the front glacis of the armor cherry red. "Alpha Two is hit!" her driver shouted.

"Alpha two, bail out!" Daniels said.

It was too late. Two more staff blasts struck the Abrams, and the front of the vehicle just...melted. The rest was engulfed in flames. Only two of the crew got out, both of them human torches that quickly burned to death.

Daniels couldn't spare the time to think of the loss of her men. "Fire!" she ordered.

The Alliance commander had made one fatal mistake setting up his ambush. His staff cannons were too close together. The canister shot from Daniels's tank killed everyone on both cannons.

And then the second Al'kesh returned. It made a single pass, firing its energy weapons into the ground, each shot shaking the earth and destroying all that they touched. Her tank heaved, and she's smashed her head against the roof. Fortunately, her helmet took the brunt of the hit, or she'd have likely broken her skull.

Her number three vehicle wasn't so lucky. There was simply nothing left from the road wheels up.

"Alpha Three is down," Donnelson said.

"Thank you for stating the obvious," Daniels grated. "We've done all we can, let's go." Daniels hit her radio. "Bravo platoon, we need that support fire. And see if you can do something about that damn Al'kesh."

"Roger that."

Daniels's tank shifted to reverse and went backwards the way she'd come. It would've been faster to turn around, but she was not keen on exposing her vehicle's weaker rear armor to enemy fire. The Alliance troops were already forming back up now that they'd seen that the metal beasts could be defeated. Her gunner still kept them somewhat off balance with his harassing machine gun fire, which prevented any coordinated rush.

And then the support fire from the LAVs came in.

The 25mm chaingun of the LAVs was not originally designed as an indirect support weapon, but it could be used quite effectively in that role. With the safety of hill between them and the Alliance troops, the LAVs hammered out the large 25mm rounds in high, lazy arcs that sleeted down into the Alliance positions. Each chaingun round had the explosive force of a small grenade and the carnage they inflicted was considerably, although nothing like the canister shot Daniels had been firing from her tank's main gun.

Nevertheless, the Alliance troops were starting to return fire. No heavy staff cannons yet, but at least a hundred staff weapon blasts hit the front of her tank. None of them penetrated, but the armor plating continued to get hotter with each impact. It wouldn't be long before Bad Things started to happen.

Her tank finally backed over the hill the LAVs were using for cover and stopped. "Bravo platoon, keep up the fire for now. Use the UAV for targeting. Once they are within 100 yards of the summit of the hill, we retreat towards the gate." Daniels ordered. She keyed her radio again. "Colonel Lorne, we've secured some breathing room, but I lost two of my tanks. We're holding the hill but I expect to be pushed back towards the Cimerrian line shortly."

"Understood," Lorne replied.

A hissing roar drown out her hearing as the LAVs salvoed a dozen Stingers at the marauding Al'kesh. The crew of the Al'kesh hadn't expected them and most of them hit, but the small missiles simply didn't pack the power to seriously harm the Al'kesh. The SAMs burst in little explosive puffs as they vented their power fruitlessly against the Al'kesh's relatively weak shield. Weak though that shield was, it was more than enough to repel such small weapons as Stingers.

_ Just a few more minutes, _Daniels thought.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Dial it up! Have the engineers begin deploying the vehicle ramp the moment the last of the refugees are through," Lorne ordered.

One of his combat engineers did as he was ordered. With the wormhole established, he hit his radio and transmitted his IDC to the Beta Site. "Beta Site, this is Lieutenant Colonel Evan Lorne. We have non-combatants incoming!"

"Our iris is open, Colonel. Send them through!" the Beta Site commander replied.

"Go!" Lorne yelled to the refugees.

One good thing about the Cimerrians, Lorne realized, is that almost all of them viewed themselves as warriors. Despite the occasional weapons fire sleeting towards their position, they remained calm and focused on their objective. Anyone that was injured was calmly but quickly helped up by another refugee, and they continued on passing through the gate without slowing.

"Colonel, Alliance infantry are about to overrun our position, we're falling back to the gate," Major Daniels said over the radio. Before she even finished the sentence, Lorne saw the APCs and the last tank turn and head for the gate.

The Cimerrian line erupted into gunfire as soon as the Alliance's troops broke the summit of the hill Daniels had retreated from. The rifles of the Cimerrians and his own men were bad enough, but the M240s and the .50 caliber heavy machine guns his men had set up in the trench line were exacting a bloody toll from the Alliance troops.

They weren't having it all their own way though. Staff blasts continued to land in and around the trench and casualties mounted. Ronon was methodically shooting Alliance soldiers one at a time with his pistol. "Can't hold here much longer," he said with complete calm.

Just as Daniels's force got behind the Cimerrian line, the last of the refugees entered the gate. "Gairwyn," Lorne said. "We need to go."

"You know well that neither I nor my men are willing to surrender our home to these invaders," she said simply.

Lorne groaned. "I have orders. I can't stay here and fight, much as I'd like to. We have a ship on the way, however. Give us a few days and we can come back to—"

A missile screamed over their position back towards the settlement. Lorne knew what a Stinger or TOW missile sounded like, and this was neither. It had to be an Alliance weapon. The missile streaked over the town, but instead of angling into the ground to explode, as Lorne had suspected, it disappeared in a rather anti-climactic puff of white smoke above the middle of the town.

Lorne scratched his head, not understanding. Then he saw something out of a nightmare.

The buildings of the settlement...melted. Or maybe dissolved was a better word. He pulled a pair of binoculars from his equipment harness and watched the horrifying sight through them. The buildings seemed to break up into tiny sand-grain sized pieces, and the wind blew the dust away with ease.

"What the…" Lorne had no idea what the Alliance had done, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to wait around to find out. He hit his radio. "Beta Site, set up a quarantine. Everyone from Cimerria, including my unit, is to go into it immediately upon arrival."

"What is it Colonel?" the Beta Site commander asked.

"I don't know," Lorne replied. "We'll have video and sensor data to study when we get there, but the Alliance just used some kind of new weapon. It might be biological, but I just don't know. Get that quarantine going!"

"Understood, colonel."

"By the gods…" Gairwyn whispered.

"We have GOT to go, Gairwyn!" Lorne shouted, grabbing her shoulder.

Gairwyn just stared as the town she grew up in literally evaporated before her eyes. Unable to speak, or even to think, she didn't bother resisting Lorne's urgings towards the Stargate. Her remaining troops took their lead from her and fell back towards the gate.

"Daniels," Lorne said into his radio. "Once the last of the Cimerrians are through the gate, take the remaining vehicles in as tight a transit pattern as you can manage."

"Yes, sir," Daniels replied.

Lorne and Ronon piled into the last LAV. Lorne watched through the external cameras as the town simply ceased to exist.


	9. Chapter 9

_Backstory notes: Sateda is Ronon's homeworld, destroyed by the Wraith. Hoff is a world that Sheppard's team visited in the Atlantis Season 1 Episode "Poisoning the Well". The Hoffans were the people that created the drug that made humans immune to feeding but was lethal to around half the humans that took it._

**Chapter 9**

"Dr. Rodney McKay," Lorne said. "Nice to see you again." His quarantine room was equipped with a video conferencing intercom system, so he not only could talk to his old friend but see him as well. "I could wish it was under better circumstances."

"Me too," Rodney agreed. "I mean, it's just terrible. I was right in the middle of major lab work on Atlantis when I got called away on this. Terribly inconsiderate," Rodney said.

Lorne chuckled despite himself. "Glad to see nothing changes with you Rodney."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rodney asked, his suspicion showing.

"Nothing," Lorne said. "What can you tell me?"

"Well, it's nanotech, we're sure of that," he said.

"Excuse me," a third voice said. Lorne looked to another screen which showed the face of Colonel James Harper, commander of the _USS Iliad_. The _Iliad_ had made orbit of Cimerria within an hour of Lorne's team retreating from the besieged world, but the Lucian Alliance forces had evacuated, a fact that Colonel Harper was less than happy about. Lorne suspected he had been looking forward to putting a boot in someone's ass and he was definitely put out that the opportunity had evaded him. "How do you know for certain it's nanotech, doctor?"

Rodney sighed with impatience. "Because we found the nanobots in the samples your ground team recovered and sent through the gate."

"I understand that," Harper said, his own impatience starting to show. "But I also understand that it's often hard to distinguish from nanobots and viruses. How can you be sure it's not a biological agent?"

"It's nanotech," Rodney stated with finality. "We reactivated some of the nanobots and are analyzing them."

Harper's eyes bugged out. "Is that wise?"

Rodney sighed. "It's fine, we've got them under control. Besides, if you want a defense against this new weapon, I need to study it."

"How soon before you can devise a defensive measure?" Harper asked.

"Well, I might be able to come up with something crude in a couple of days that would be partially effective, but not really adequate. For a proper defensive weapon system I'd say…three months?" Rodney said.

"Three months?" Harper asked, a twinge of fear showing in his eyes. "We may not have three months, doctor!"

"Oh, of course, you're right. I'll just wave my magic wand and materialize a new weapon out of thin air for you, how's that?" Rodney snapped.

"Doctor," Harper said warningly.

"Alright, that's enough," Lorne said. "Rodney, can you at least detect the nanobots?"

"Yes," Rodney replied. "We're already scanning you and the Cimerrian refugees, in fact to make sure you're clean. I'm pretty certain you are, though."

"Why's that?" Lorne asked.

"Because these things replicate themselves pretty quickly. If any had come through the gate with you I'm pretty sure you'd all be…well…dead by now," Rodney said.

"I know it will take time, but what kind of defensive measure did you have in mind?" Lorne asked.

A buzzer interrupted the response Rodney was about to give, and the airtight sealed door to Lorne's quarantine room opened. "You all are clean," Rodney said.

"That's a relief," Lorne said. He hit his radio. "Ronon, take the rest of SG1 back to Earth and report to General Landry. I'll be along in a little while, I've still got some things to talk about with McKay."

"Got it," Ronon replied.

"You were saying, Rodney?" Lorne asked.

"Oh, yes, countermeasures. Most likely we're talking about an energy weapon that will disable the nanites themselves. Such a system would still be vulnerable to a surprise attack by these nanites, however. If the defenders don't fire their weapon before the nanites got deployed, the weapon itself could be consumed by them. Still, we could get something workable on a large scale by using ship and ground based implementations of it. It wouldn't do anything to reverse any damage done by hostile nanites, but it would at least stop their spread," Rodney explained.

Rodney continued. "Ideally, however, I'd suggest we use our own nanobots to destroy these Alliance nanobots by deploying them 'prophylactically' in the atmosphere of friendly planets. This method would limit the damage significantly; in fact the damage would be considerably less than that caused by conventional weapons. This has a big problem, though. The IOA would probably not allow it, especially on Earth. There are too many corporations capable of working with basic nanotech that our hunter-killer nanobots would be discovered for sure and it'd blow our security. Aside from that, the brass is pretty skittish about nanotech in general," Rodney said.

Lorne grimaced. He understood that the government wanted to maintain secrecy around the Stargate program, but the danger of this new nano-weapon could not be overstated. Lorne was coming to believe as General O'Neill did on the matter of secrecy, that it was starting to cause more harm than good. That decision wasn't up to one Lt Colonel Evan Lorne, however. "I see," he said.

"Security is far from the only problem with that idea," Colonel Harper said.

"Well…yes…" Rodney stammered. "To be honest, our own success with nanobots has been, um…"

"Nonexistent?" Colonel Harper put in.

"No," Rodney said defensively. Then he grimaced. "But we have had setbacks. Almost all of our nanotech is derived from Replicator technology which has proven to be extremely dangerous. Replicator nanites have never been controllable and we don't have the knowledge to fully purge the software of Replicator code. The Asgard database has some information on nanotech, but most of it relates to either disrupting Replicator nanotech or industrial nanotech. Certainly they don't have much on something like this."

"One thing I don't understand," Colonel Harper said. "Why bother?"

"Sir?" Lorne asked, not seeing where Harper was going with his question.

"Why bother?" he repeated. "If your goal is to destroy your enemy's planetary installations and population centers, it seems to me like old fashioned orbital bombardment with energy weapons or nuclear warheads would work just as well and not require any of this sophisticated and expensive nanotech."

"It's more precise," Rodney said. "Consider that nanobots are controlled by computer software. You could tailor the weapon to attack only certain targets. If you wished to capture a world and leave something of particular value intact, you could program the nanites to destroy everything except that."

Harper looked rather concerned at that. "I wonder what they were after on Cimerria? They were gone by the time we showed up."

"It was a demonstration," Lorne said. That was the only thing it could be, as far as he was concerned. The Alliance was clearly demonstrating what they could do to Earth and its allies.

Harper nodded. "The thought occurred to me, too. Still, if you demonstrate something like that, it's usually to win some kind of concession from your enemy and we've received no demands."

"Maybe it was also a test," Rodney put in. "We haven't received word of anything like this happening anywhere else, so it's probably not in general use yet. Maybe they weren't sure it would work."

Lorne grunted agreement. "It's probably a bit of both. They waited until SG1 responded so they could be sure we'd see it. Hell, if they had been determined to pull off a proper operation, they'd have taken out the Stargate first and we'd have had no way to counterattack them. Either way, though, we've got to do something about this and find some way to counter it. Soon. Otherwise, we're going to find ourselves completely at our enemy's mercy with no choice but to accept whatever terms they offer."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

General Landry sat down by himself in the base's cafeteria. Cafeteria food wasn't his favorite, but it was chili night at the base, and it was one of the few dishes the cooks (and he used the term 'cooks' loosely here) actually did a pretty good job with. For once, he managed to get away from his office and the gateroom and have dinner in peace.

Smiling, he dipped his spoon into the steaming bowl of chili. He lifted the spoon to take his first bite when…

"Unscheduled activation," the intercom announced. "General Landry to the gateroom."

He dropped the spoon back into his chili dejectedly. "Dammit to hell."

Landry jogged into the gateroom just in time to see the gate activate and the iris close up. Walter Harriman was still at his station. _How does he always manage to be here for gate activations?_ Landry thought. _It's unnatural. He's got to sleep _sometime.

"Receiving a transmission, general. Audio and video," Harriman said.

"Put it on," Landry ordered.

The flat screen above Harriman's console activated. A being with leather green skin and silken white hair stared back at Landry, and he unconsciously backed up a step.

"Who the hell are you?" Landry asked.

The Wraith smiled. "I am the one called 'Todd.' I wish to speak with John Sheppard. There are events in motion he must know about. I need his help…and you need mine."

"Well, I'm afraid I can't help you," Landry said. "Sheppard's retired. Besides, didn't you steal one of our ships once? Why in the hell should I trust you?"

Todd became more agitated. "You are a fool if you do not hear my proposal. But, as a token of my goodwill, accept this." Landry saw Todd activate something on his console.

"Receiving databurst," Harriman said.

"Put it on one of our secure computers and bring it up," Landry said. Harriman did as he was ordered, and a number of technical readouts came up on another of Harriman's array of flat screens. Most of it was well above Landry's head. "Get Dr. Lee up here," Landry said.

The images stopped on what appeared to be a schematic. "Hold that," Landry said. The image showed what appeared to be a blueprint of a robot. It looked vaguely familiar.

"That is the nanoweapon that was recently used on the world you call Cimerria," Todd said.

Landry jerked his attention back to Todd. "How did you know about that?" he demanded.

"I know a lot of things," Todd replied. Landry was certain that Todd was having fun annoying him with that cryptic answer.

"There is a war coming," Todd said. "Some of my brethren have learned the technology needed to overwhelm you. You know this as well as I do. I propose we ally ourselves together against our common enemy."

"Again, why should we trust you? I take it you're not doing this out of the goodness of your black little Wraith heart," Landry said.

"Of course not," Todd said simply. "I've made many enemies among my brethren. If they defeat you and harvest your world, they will be far too powerful for my forces to hold off. If you die, I die. It's in my best interest to help you."

Landry didn't disagree with Todd's analysis as presented, but he was still a Wraith. The reports he'd read from the Atlantis Expedition, especially those of Dr. Weir and Colonel Sheppard made it clear that Todd was not trustworthy. On the other hand, Todd had, for the most part, kept up his end of any deal Atlantis had made with him.

"Why do you want to talk to Sheppard?" Landry asked.

"I have a plan, one that might…mitigate the odds you are facing. He is a part of it," Todd said.

"Let's hear it, then," Landry said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

John Sheppard fidgeted in his chair in the conference room of Stargate Command. He was not at all happy to have been dragged back here. He wasn't sure what Landry wanted with him and he didn't much want to know, but Teyla's pleading had been more than he could say no to.

Sheppard didn't like waiting in the base conference room but at least he was in good company. Regardless of everything else, it was nice to see Ronon and Rodney.

"What is this about, Ronon?" Sheppard asked the tall Satedan sitting next to him. "Why are you here anyway?"

"I don't know what's going on," he said. "Teyla was pretty tight lipped about it. Sounds important. As for why I'm here," he smiled warmly, "I heard you were going to be around. It's been a while."

"I suppose it has," Sheppard said. "Where is Teyla, by the way?"

"Offworld. I don't know where. I just got back myself," Ronon said. "You should come back, John. They don't let me or Teyla offworld much, but we get to go sometimes. If we could get you back onboard, we could at least go together. It'd be like old times," he said.

"I hope not. 'Old Times' almost got us killed on multiple occasions. Constant firefights, massive Wraith attacks, Rodney screwing up some piece of ancient tech and nearly blowing up all reality…"

"I never almost blew up all of reality. Not ours, at any rate," Rodney protested. _Blow up one planet and this is how they treat you_, Rodney fumed.

Ronon smiled again. "Don't you miss it, John?"

Sheppard chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I do." Sheppard's expression darkened. "Things change, though. People change. I don't—"

The conference room door opened. "Colonel Sheppard," General Landry said.

"It's just 'John' these days, actually," Sheppard said.

Landry nodded as he sat at the head of the table. "Whatever you want, John. I'm sorry I pulled you into this but…we need your help."

"I really kind of doubt that, General," Sheppard said.

Landry sighed. He hit a button on the conference table, activating an intercom. "Walt, send him in."

The conference room door opened, and a person John Sheppard had hoped to never see again walked into the room.

"Hello, Todd," Sheppard said sardonically. "I'd say that we're all happy to see you, but…"

"We're not," Ronon finished for him.

"Exactly!" Sheppard said, displaying a huge insincere smile. "Why are you here?" Sheppard turned and glanced at Landry. "And more importantly, why in hell's name did you let him through that gate?"

"Yes, why did you let him through the gate?" Rodney asked. "Do you have any idea how dangerous he is?"

"Todd has a proposal that—" Landry began.

"What a surprise," Sheppard groaned, facepalming.

"Would this be anything like that proposal where he stole one of our ships?" Rodney asked.

Landry's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "As I was saying, Todd has a proposal that I think we should listen to." Landry looked towards Todd and nodded.

"My brethren have adapted the technology of the Lanteans," he said. "They are building a warfleet to send to this world. To cull it."

John sat up straight. "They can't," he said. "Their ships are too slow to get here."

"Not anymore," Landry said. "The _Daedalus_ found their main shipyard recently. The sensor readings were conclusive; they've reverse engineered ZPMs, probably Asuran models. Their new ZPM isn't nearly as good as the genuine Asuran or Lantean ZPMs, but they can produce these weaker ones in large numbers. We can expect a commensurate increase in their combat capability as well as hyperspace speed."

Sheppard felt a lump of ice forming in his stomach. "How long?"

"It will take their new ships about two years to make the journey. They already have some forces in our galaxy now, but we think it's mostly scouts," Landry said. "They had 40 ships nearing completion at the shipyard _Daedalus_ found, and we're pretty sure they have others."

"Launch a pre-emptive strike," Sheppard said.

"We'd like to," Landry said. "Unfortunately, things are rapidly going to hell where the Lucian Alliance is concerned. There have been a score of minor skirmishes and a couple of significant attacks. Also, we've been getting some disturbing reports from some our patrolling ships about the Alliance's military capability. Their _Ha'taks _have apparently received some significant upgrades. We can't prove it, but we're pretty sure that the Alliance has gained access to some of the new Wraith tech. In light of these developments, the IOA is not willing to divert heavy enough forces to any pre-emptive attack because they feel that to do so would leave us too vulnerable to a serious push by the Alliance."

"I don't give a rat's ass what the IOA thinks," Sheppard said. "What do you think? What does General O'Neill think?"

"Actually," Landry said, "I kind of agree with them this time. If we divert heavy forces to Pegasus and the Alliance finds out, we could find ourselves in a very bad situation in a hurry."

"What about the Free Jaffa?" Sheppard asked.

"That situation is dicey," Landry said. "They nearly backed out of our mutual defense treaty. A good many of the Jaffa think we're trouble, and that we're likely to drag them into a war with the Alliance that they aren't prepared for. Nevermind that the Alliance are the ones that are being belligerent. Fortunately, Teal'c and Bra'tac prevented that despite the fact that one of the isolationist council members ending up dead by the hand of an assassin. Still, the situation is delicate, and the IOA fears that activating our mutual defense treaty with them might damage relations to the point that they won't help us. And if we've got a massive fleet of Wraith ships bearing down us in a couple of years…"

Sheppard nodded. "Then we're going to need all the help we can get. Still, what does any of this have to do with me?"

"Todd?" Landry motioned towards the Wraith.

"If my brethren cull this world it would bode…ill for me. I have made more than enough enemies, and once this particular faction culls your world, they will be unstoppable. I propose we start the battle now in Pegasus, by attacking their shipyards," Todd said.

The tall Wraith commander continued. "Unfortunately, I do not have the numbers to overwhelm them. I need for my ship crews and Dart pilots to be better than theirs. Our warrior drones are not noted for their...imaginative tactics. They need to be…taught," Todd seemed to have a little trouble getting the unfamiliar word out.

Sheppard just stared at Todd. "Are you serious? You want someone to train your men?"

"Not just anyone," Todd said. "You."

"Forget it," Sheppard snapped.

"Dammit, Colonel," Landry said.

"Get off the 'Colonel' stuff, General. I'm a civilian now, I do not take orders from you. This is a crappy plan anyway," Sheppard snapped.

"Alright, look, John," Landry said. "I know I can't order you to do this. But I need you to. This whole world needs you to. You remember what happened to Sateda and to Hoff. That's going to happen here."

Sheppard buried his face in his hands. This was the last thing he wanted to do. It seemed like no matter how hard he tried to run away from his past, it always came back to haunt him. Even being in that conference room reminded him of everything. Of the people he'd lost. Of Elizabeth.

And now this.

He was about to go into full rant mode at Landry when it hit him like a hammer. Maybe there was a way to undo his mistakes. It was a long shot, but…

"If I do this," Sheppard said. "I have some conditions. They are NOT negotiable."

Landry sighed. "What do you want?"

"I want Elizabeth," Sheppard said.

Landry looked confused. "What?"

"I want Elizabeth Weir," Sheppard said. "I want to take a ship to the space gate we sent her through, retrieve her, bring her back here, and have Rodney build a human body for her as she had intended originally."

"No way," Landry said. "It's too dangerous. How do we even know the Asuran you sent through the space gate was really her?"

"It was her," Sheppard said. "Besides, if you're worried about it, we can just use one of those zaytac thingies or whatever it is—"

Rodney groaned. "Za'tarc detector."

"Whatever. We can just use one of those to determine if she's really who she claims to be," Sheppard said.

"And if she isn't?" Landry asked.

"We kill it," Sheppard said. "And yes, I will still carry out my mission either way."

Landry shook his head. "There's no way that Homeworld Command or the IOA will agree to this anyway, and I don't blame them. There's no legitimate reason, beyond your personal feelings, to go through with such a risky operation. And I am not going to risk the well-being of anyone under my command for those personal feelings of yours."

"Actually, um, General," Rodney said. "There might be a good reason."

Landry's eyebrows shot up.

"The Lucian Alliance just used a nanotech based weapon of mass destruction on Cimerria," Rodney said. "When I was researching how to build human bodies for the Asurans, one of the things that became apparent is that their bodies would be infested with nanites. Elizabeth gave me some design specifications for those nanites. Part of their design would mean that the Asurans would be able to exert mental control over them."

"What does that have to do with Cimerria?" Landry asked.

"Right, I'm just saying, general, that we're going to have a hard time countering the enemy's nanotech because our own falls far short of being used operationally. If we go through with what Sheppard is proposing, we just might be able to solve some of our problems."

Rodney shifted into excited scientist mode. "Every other example of nanotech we have is either Replicator tech, which actively defends itself, or deactivated Asuran nanites and we've learned about all we can from non-functioning examples. The truth is that even though we can fabricate Lantean nanites with the equipment from Atlantis, we don't understand how they work. However, if we go through with this plan, we will have working nanotech onhand under the control of someone friendly to us who spent time in an Asuran nanite body. It might be the last push we need to crack our problems with manufacturing our own nano-tech."

Landry nearly rejected the idea outright, but McKay had a point. "Alright, let me contact General O'Neill. I'm sure this will be a fun conversation."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

John Sheppard, Dr. Rodney McKay, and Dr. Jennifer Keller looked downwards into the secure medical ward, and Sheppard could scarcely believe they'd actually gone through with it.

The Asuran that housed Elizabeth's personality had been retrieved (with Todd's help, damn him). She was inside a quarantine capsule, the interior temperature kept very close to absolute zero. She remained inactive at these temperatures, but that was about to change shortly.

Rodney's scientific curiosity had come in handy in this case. He had studied the notes and data the Asurans had left behind on Atlantis when Woolsey had them sent through the space gate. Though he'd never gotten permission to experiment, he finished the theoretical portion of the Asurans work on building new human bodies. The implications of that for the medical profession were pretty staggering. In fact, he'd initially wondered if he'd stumbled onto a true fountain of youth. If you could simply build a new, young body and transfer your conscious into it, there'd be no upper limit on your lifespan.

It hadn't quite worked out that way, though. Rodney had worked out how to transfer a consciousness from an Asuran body into a human one, but he had no idea how he might transfer a human consciousness OUT of a human body. The Asurans had, obviously, not been concerned with researching that particular subject during their time on Atlantis.

Landry already had a dozen guards in the medical ward. He obviously feared that the Asuran was not really Elizabeth Weir. Rodney had no doubt that it was, but the precautions didn't hurt anything either. There was also a Jaffa councilor present, though Rodney really had no idea what his interest in all of this was.

The door to the medical ward opened, and a hospital gurney was rolled in. John was nearly trembling at the sight of what was on the gurney.

Rebuilding the body had been difficult according to Rodney. Until now, he had not been permitted to experiment. Fortunately, the Lantean nanotech that made this possible worked quickly. Rodney had gone through a lot of trial error over the past week, but in the end he'd figured it out as he always did. While figuring the problem out had been hard, getting the rebuilt body correct had been fairly easy. The SGC had complete medical records on all its personnel after all, including a full genetic mapping.

On the gurney was the human body Rodney had managed to build with Dr. Keller's help. It was a sight John thought he'd never see again, but it really was Elizabeth as he'd remembered her. The rebuilt clone body looked like it might've been a bit younger than Elizabeth's original at her time of capture, but it was definitely her.

Or would be soon, at any rate. Dr. Lam had set up all the Lantean medical equipment Rodney had taken from Atlantis for this procedure.

"We're ready to get started Dr. McKay," Dr. Lam said into the intercom.

"We'll be down shortly," Rodney replied.

"Rodney, what you've accomplished here is amazing, even if it doesn't work out," Jennifer said.

"It will work out," Rodney replied. "And you had a part in it yourself."

Sheppard glanced at Rodney. "Sharing credit? That's unlike you."

Rodney tipped his head towards Jennifer. "She's a bad influence on me."

"Look, Rodney. Jennifer. Whatever happens I just wanted to say…thank you for doing this. You'll never know what it means to me," John said. John enfolded Rodney in hug.

"Hey, what are friends for?" Rodney asked.

"We'd better get down there," Jennifer said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Sheppard sat in a chair by Elizabeth's bed in the base's ICU. It had been seven hours since the operation to transfer Elizabeth's mind into the body Rodney had built for her. Sheppard had spent all seven of them at her bedside, waiting.

Sheppard didn't know how long she'd be unconscious, or if the operation had even worked. The Asuran body had disintegrated into its constituent nanites the moment the transfer began, but there was really no way to know if it had worked. He wouldn't know if Elizabeth was really in there or not until she woke.

Rodney had muttered some nerd-babble about neural pathways or some other kind of brain-surgeon crap that Sheppard didn't care about. Rodney bottom lined it for him that it could be hours, even days before she stirred.

He longed for her to wake, but at the same time he feared it. He was at least partly responsible for what had happened to her, and he feared looking into her eyes and seeing judgment or condemnation. If that happened, he didn't know how he would react or how he would be able to live with himself. What if she—

His woolgathering was interrupted by a rustling. His eyes snapped over to the bed and settled on two pale green eyes he had, up until recently, thought he'd never see again.

"Elizabeth," he whispered.

"John? Is that you?" he asked.

"It's me," he said, taking her right hand inside both of his. "It's me."

"How did—"

Her question was interrupted as the door to the ICU room opened. Several armed guards poured in followed by General Landry, Dr. Carolyn Lam, General O'Neill, and that Jaffa councilor Sheppard had seen earlier.

"Dr. Elizabeth Weir," Dr. Lam said. She motioned towards the device situated at the foot of her hospital bed. "I take it you are familiar with this device."

Elizabeth gazed at the device and nodded in recognition. "Za'tarc detector. I see. You can't know for sure if it's really me in this body, or some Asuran program."

"That's right. Since you now reside in a human body, we believe the device should be effective in determining if you're lying or not," General Landry said. "I know this is difficult, but it has to be done."

"I understand," Elizabeth nodded. "John maybe you should—"

"No," he said flatly. Elizabeth smiled. She should've known he would've refused to leave. Recognizing an unwinnable battle, she turned back towards Dr. Lam. "Let's proceed."

Dr. Lam activated the detector. "Please look into the light, Dr. Weir. Good. We'll do some baseline questions first. What color is your hair?"

"Dark brown," Elizabeth said.

"Who is this man standing next to me?"

"General Landry."

"Oh, I've got one," General O'Neill piped up. "Who's the most important person to me in the whole world?"

Elizabeth chuckled. "Homer Simpson?"

General O'Neill nodded. "It's her."

Landry rolled his eyes. "Continue, Dr. Lam."

"OK. Now tell me what—"

It went on like that for the better part of an hour. John didn't like it, but there was nothing he could do. He counted it a personal insult that Landry didn't trust her and felt this was all necessary. The logical part of him understood why it had to be done, but John didn't give a damn about his logical part. Not being able to do anything grated on him, so he did what he could. He held Elizabeth's hand in a show of support.

After nearly an hour, Dr. Lam finally asked, "Are you Dr. Elizabeth Weir?"

It wasn't just what Dr. Lam asked that gave it meaning, John realized. It was how she asked it. Dr. Lam wasn't asking if she claimed the title and name of 'Dr. Elizabeth Weir'. She was asking if the woman in the hospital bed next to John was the woman who had spent her early career as a UN diplomat. If she was the woman who had been brought into the Stargate program to head the Atlantis expedition. If she was the woman who had sacrificed any chance she may have had to return home to the people she loved, just to protect them from unseen and unknown threat a galaxy away that they couldn't possibly imagine existed.

Elizabeth answered. "Yes."

Dr. Lam looked down at the display on the detector, and John held his breathe. It really only took her two seconds to read the display, but it might as well have been 2,000 years for John. Dr. Lam finally looked up at Elizabeth. "And so you are, Dr. Weir," she said. Dr. Lam turned the monitor with the read out around so that Elizabeth could see it. It's flashing green indicator clearly indicated that Elizabeth had answered the question truthfully.

John released a pent up breathe. _Thank God_, he thought.

"Wait," General O'Neill said, holding up a hand. "One more question, if you don't mind." O'Neill motioned towards the old Jaffa councilor. "Master Bra'tac, if you would."

Bra'tac bowed towards O'Neill and approached the bed. His eyes locked with Elizabeth's, and as Dr. Lam just had, he asked Elizabeth to confirm not just her name, but the essence of who and what she was.

"Are you Elizabeth Weir?" Bra'tac asked.

"Yes," she answered.

Bra'tac had kept his eyes locked on hers the whole time. From his expression, it didn't even look like he had heard her. And perhaps he hadn't, in the conventional sense.

Bra'tac smiled. "She speaks truly, General O'Neill."

"Thank you, Master Bra'tac," O'Neill said.

Landry spoke next. "Well, since you are who you say are, I think we can dispense with the guards. A lot has happened Dr. Weir, and we find ourselves in need of your help, but that can wait until tomorrow. For now, I'll leave the two of you. One more thing, Sheppard."

"General?"

Landry tossed something towards Sheppard. He caught it and looked at it. They were dog tags.

"Consider yourself re-instated Colonel. You depart for Pegasus tomorrow and your ship will be here at 0600. Be ready," Landry said.

O'Neill smiled as he turned to leave. "You two kids have fun now." Elizabeth blushed. Without another word, O'Neill and his party left, leaving John and Elizabeth alone.

"Elizabeth," John began. "I'm sorry I didn't come back for you. I'm sorry that I let them send you through that space gate. I'm sorry—"

Elizabeth touched her index finger to his lips, shushing him before the flood got out of control. "No, John. I made my choice. And it was the right choice. Don't do this to yourself."

He tried to speak, to disagree, but he was out of words. He tried to hold it all back, but he couldn't. After a few moments of stoic silence, Elizabeth Weir saw John Sheppard, the strongest, most unbreakable man she'd ever met, break down and weep.

Sheppard wasn't completely unbreakable, however. In fact, the more unbreakable a man was, the more brittle he was. What had happened to her had been too much for him, and it had finally broken him. She could see it easily enough in the tiny smattering of gray hair he was starting to get and the couple of extra worry lines in his face she didn't remember from the last time she'd seen him.

She held his hand until he'd finished pouring his anguish out. It probably wasn't more than a few minutes, but it seemed like a long time.

"Sorry," he sniffled. "I just…I was lost after what we did to you. I just kind of gave up. God, I hope you won't think any less of me now, but I know there's plenty of reason to."

"Everything's going to be fine, John," she soothed. She knew John Sheppard had cared for her…more than a subordinate should, in fact. While she'd known it was a bad idea, she'd let herself start to feel the same way towards him. Events separated them before it went too far, but she could now see just how hard he had fallen for her. She didn't like to think about what it must've cost him to let her walk through that space gate.

Or what it had cost him to get the SGC to bring her home.

"How did you convince them?" she asked.

"Things have not been too good lately," John said. He went on to explain to her in detail about the Wraith build up and the Lucian Alliance's nanite attack on Cimerria. He then told her about Todd and his offer, and the unbendable terms he'd imposed on General Landry before he'd go through with it.

"John," she whispered. "Working with Todd is dangerous. You didn't need to do that for me."

"It was the only leverage I had to get you back," John said. "I don't regret it, even a little bit, but a deal's a deal. I'll see it through. I'll have to leave tomorrow, however. I just wish we could spend more time together because I…I…love you. And I have for a long time."

_ John Sheppard_, she thought, _I have done nothing to deserve this kind of devotion from anyone._ _But I'm grateful for it nonetheless,_ she thought. His admission of his feelings for her made her realize she felt the same way for him. It had been there all along and she didn't understand why she hadn't seen it before. Or maybe she had, and just didn't admit it to herself because she felt it would interfere with her duties, which it probably would have.

"I love you too," she said.

His eyes belied the relief and sheer untainted happiness those four words had sent coursing through him.

She pulled him closer and kissed him gently. "You've already made preparations for your mission tomorrow?" she whispered.

"Yes," he whispered back.

"Then stay with me tonight," she said. She made room for him on the hospital bed, and he laid beside her. They came together in a longer, deeper kiss and for the first time in eight years, John Sheppard remembered who he was and what he had to do.

The whole scene might've seemed a bit odd. Sheppard had always tried to be the knight in shining armor, righting wrongs and fighting the good fight. He was always the one there to pick up others when they fell, to be their strength when they had none left.

Few who didn't know him well would've expected see him so vulnerable, to see someone being strong for him. But Elizabeth did know him well.

John Sheppard slept well that night, the first good sleep he'd gotten in years, in the arms of the one person he loved most in the world.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note: Finally got this one finished. Enjoy._

**Chapter 10**

"Enter," a voice on the other side of the door said.

Teal'c pushed open the door to Sa'vel's office. Sa'vel cut an imposing and impressive figure. At 6 feet and 8 inches, he was very tall and built proportionally. Teal'c had done some reading about Sa'vel and had learned that it was unwise to judge the man by his imposing appearance.

Sa'vel had, in the past, used his appearance and a bit of acting to portray the idea that he was a slightly unintelligent man who relied on simple brute strength and fear to get his way. There were a great many men who were quite thoroughly dead now because they'd made that assumption. No, Sa'vel's most dangerous weapon wasn't his physique or physical prowess, not that those weren't considerable. Behind that rough exterior laid a keen and very dangerous mind. Teal'c was quite happy that that mind was in agreement with his on the current political situation.

At least that's how things appeared to Teal'c at the moment. He would've liked to believe Sa'vel was being completely honest with him, but the caution he'd learned since entering politics had taught him to not assume that until he knew the man well enough to be certain.

Teal'c bowed respectfully. "Councilor. I had hoped Bra'tac and I might have met with you at an earlier time before events conspired against us."

Sa'vel nodded. "It is not a problem. Where is Bra'tac, if I might ask?"

"He is visiting with the Tau'ri. General O'Neill requested his presence at a meeting as a personal favor," Teal'c replied.

Sa'vel smiled knowingly, acknowledging how Teal'c had deftly gave him an answer that was completely truthful, but also told him absolutely nothing of any real substance, other than the fact that Bra'tac was presently not on Chulak, a bit of information that was no secret to the Council anyway. "Ahh, politics. A profession not befitting for honorable and honest warriors such as ourselves. I suppose someone has to do it, however."

"Indeed," Teal'c replied. "I am pleased, however, that the vote in the Council went the way it did."

Sa'vel nodded. "This is not the time to isolate ourselves. Too much was lost to the Ori during the war. If we are to remain free, we must stand together with those that desire the same. Maintaining that freedom is one reason I wished to speak with you. You are close to the Tau'ri, and what I wish to discuss with you pertains to them as well as the Jaffa."

"I see," Teal'c said, non-committal.

"My talents extend beyond leadership on the battlefield and political wrangling," Sa'vel said. "When I was First Prime of Micouta, I often used…subtler means to defeat my false god's opponents. Many of my contacts and sources survived the Jaffa rebellion and we've continued to operate. That has given me unique access to information most are unaware of, and we have even achieved good penetration of the Lucian Alliance."

Teal'c blinked. He had known Sa'vel was craftier than he let on, but he'd never expected anything like this. He'd especially not expected Sa'vel to admit as such openly.

"That is…intriguing," Teal'c said carefully.

Sa'vel smiled. "It is a bit unusual for me to admit this sort of thing openly to anyone."

"Why change that practice now?" Teal'c asked.

Sa'vel's expression grew darker. "Things are not well, right now. The Lucian Alliance and the Wraith threaten to take advantage of the weakened state of both us and the Tau'ri. What I can offer the Tau'ri is information on the Lucian Alliance's movements that may be vital to averting defeat. I offer this freely to our allies."

"You have been keeping the Council informed as well, I assume?" Teal'c asked.

Sa'vel nodded. "Yes. I propose that we, with the Council's approval, ratchet up our intelligence gathering operations against the Lucian Alliance. Any information gained will be shared with our allies in the Tau'ri. What do you think?"

Teal'c wasn't sure what to think. The offer was certainly tempting and given Sa'vel's apparent confidence, Teal'c didn't doubt Sa'vel's network of spies was as effective as he obviously felt it was. Then again, accepting the offer would put Teal'c in Sa'vel's debt politically, a fact that he was certain had not escaped Sa'vel's notice.

_You are worrying overmuch_, Teal'c scolded himself. _We need him._

"Very well," Teal'c said. "I will support your plan. The only issue is that we will need to get it approved by the Council. The last vote was a tie and that worked for us since our opponents needed a majority to change policy. However, this time we are the ones trying to change policy. It shall fall to us to gain a majority."

Sa'vel nodded. "Yat'yir's replacement, Riga, thought much as Yat'Yir did, but I have spoken with him. He does not like how close our relationship with the Tau'ri is, but I have convinced him that we need to maintain our relationship with them for now. We shall have a majority."

Teal'c sighed. He didn't really like winning Council votes by such slim margins. It tended to breed resentment and worsened political infighting, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. And he did agree with Sa'vel's idea.

"Very well," Teal'c said. "We shall bring your proposal before the Council at the next meeting."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"The President will see you now," the aide said.

General O'Neill adjusted his dress uniform, ensuring there were no creases or imperfection of any sort. He smiled inwardly at himself. _All those years spent bucking the brass, now I'm behaving like one. How things change,_ he mused.

General O'Neill entered the Oval Office and faced the man sitting behind the antique wooden desk. "Mr. President," O'Neill greeted him formally.

President Lawrence Clark motioned towards one of the comfortable couches. "Have a seat, General. I think you know everyone."

Already present were the senior members of the IOA: Carl Strom, the committee's leader, British Representative Russel Chapman, Chinese Representative Shen Xiaoyi, French representative Jean LaPierre, and American representative James Coolidge. Noticeably absent was Richard Woolsey. Jack did his best not to grin insufferably at that. _Once Woolsey saw the light and started giving his teams a free hand to do their jobs, I suppose this grand collection of jackasses decided he'd turned 'traitor' on them and now they're expressing their displeasure in their usual petty way,_ Jack thought.

Jack had learned a lot about being a flag officer, however, and his face conveyed none of these feelings. He nodded to the IOA representatives and seated himself.

The only person present Jack was happy to see was General Francis Maynard, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"General, this was your idea, so why don't you start?" the President asked.

"Of course, sir. In light of the Lucian Alliance's assault on Cimerria we have reason to believe that war is imminent with the Alliance," Jack said. "Given their apparent...coziness with certain elements of the Wraith, it presents a very dangerous situation, one that I and my colleagues feel can't be allowed to continue."

General Maynard spoke up. "As of now, the Alliance does not have the power to challenge us directly and the number of Wraith ships in the Milky Way is not sufficient to change that, not yet at least. Truthfully, the biggest danger we're facing now is these probing attacks they've been launching against our offworld bases."

"Have they used another nano-weapon?" Strom asked.

"No. Cimerria is the only world where they've employed that particular piece of technology," Maynard said. "I'm glad you brought that up, actually. General O'Neill and I feel that their use of that weapon is part of their overall strategy."

"Which is?" Shen asked, sounding impatient.

"We think they're conducting what amounts to reconnaissance. Except for Cimerria, the various attacks we've been hit with have been raids and have caused very little actual damage. I think they've gotten wind of the existence of the Theta site and are looking for it," O'Neill said. "The nano-weapon was used, we believe, as a foil to get us to deploy our fleets defensively. This would give them room to operate and would increase their chances of finding the Theta site." O'Neill said the last part carefully, as LaPierre, Coolidge, and the President had suggested that very deployment pattern and politicians, being naturally vindictive, would take O'Neill's opposition to their policy suggestions personally.

The President frowned. The Theta site was a very, very black project. It was black even within the SGC and Homeworld Command.

The Theta site was a continuation of the policy the military had implemented initially during the dark days of the Goa'uld War. Initially, the Alpha and Beta site had been set up as redoubts on worlds unknown to the Goa'uld and would be a place that military forces and political leaders could retreat to if Earth were ever attacked in force. It would be from these sites that the exiled governments of Earth could continue to operate against the Goa'uld, and hopefully retake Earth. In a worst case scenario, they would guarantee the survival of some of the human species in case Earth was completely wiped out.

The Theta site was the logical progression of this doctrine, but it was built on a larger scale. The Theta site was situated in a star system that was very rich in various resources. Besides establishing a military base, a fairly significant industrial base and workforce had been stationed there permanently. The base had a massive shipyard that was working day and night to build more ships for Earth. It housed the most sophisticated scientific research facility every constructed, and it was quickly displacing Area 51 as the US military's premiere research center. It was a risky venture, to be sure, because of the 10,000 strong workforce stationed at the Theta site. The more people that were brought in, the greater the chance of a leak. However, their internal security had held up so far, and the secrets of the Theta site had remained secret.

The most closely held secret of all was the Theta site's location. No one in the room actually knew where the planet was or which star it orbited, and the security measures taken to ensure no one found out its location bordered on insanity. O'Neill had been there three or four times, but for all that, he had no idea where the site actually was. Ships traveling to and from the Theta site took a different route and a different speed each time, so that any spy on the ship would not be able to tell how far the site was from Earth based on transit time. Furthermore, to even get to the Theta site, a portable navigation computer had to be attached to the ship's navigation system. Once the ship arrived at the Theta site or arrived at its destination after leaving, the portable computer would destroy its internal memory with a small thermite charge, which required the portable computer to be housed in a specially prepared cargo bay so as to not start a fire. Also, all sensor systems on ships traveling to or from the Theta site had to be disabled. This ensured a spy would not be able to access the sensor systems and identify the star itself through spectral analysis.

The few people who knew the Theta site's location were permanently stationed at the site. Since the Theta site had no Stargate, the only way offworld was by ship, and the military had complete control over all spacecraft traffic.

The Theta site was the most closely held secret in all of Earth's history (with the possible exception of the Stargate itself) and it served as humanity's bolthole where new ships and weapons were built and stood ready to house Earth's survivors in seclusion should that be required. And the Lucian Alliance was looking for it.

"I think it's quite clear that we can't allow them to find the Theta site," Chapman said.

"I agree," Shen added.

General O'Neill nodded. "We've decided that we need to pull their attention elsewhere. Keep them too busy to go looking for the Theta site. To that end, we propose that we launch a preemptive strike against the Lucian Alliance."

LaPierre sat up straight in his chair. "Surely you are not serious? You wish to start a _war_ over your precious Theta site?"

"Mr. LaPierre," O'Neill said with forced cordiality, "we _will_ be at war with the Lucian Alliance in the near future. With that in mind, we feel that-"

"No. This is typical military adventurism," LaPierre protested. "We should send a diplomatic mission to the Alliance before resorting to violence."

"I would point out Mr. Lapierre, that the Alliance has already resorted to violence," Shen said icily. "While no bases or ships belonging to the People's Republic of China have been attacked to date, I strongly doubt that that situation will obtain indefinitely. It is the position of my government that the Theta site's location be protected at all costs.

_Politics really can make some strange bedfellows,_ O'Neill thought. There was a time when he'd never expected the US military to agree with the Chinese on anything. However, the Theta site did have a contingent of researchers from China and the shipyard built ships for the Chinese just like it did for the US. Whatever could be said of the PRC, they did not take threats lightly.

LaPierre sighed. "What targets do you propose?"

O'Neill responded. "We know the locations of several Alliance shipyards. We owe that a new intelligence conduit we just gained access to. Free Jaffa agents within the Alliance have provided this information. We also propose to launch an attack against Lucia, the Alliance's capital world. Primary targets would be Lucia's shipyards and all of its deep space industry."

"What do you mean by deep space industry?" LaPierre asked.

General Maynard spoke. "Asteroid extractors, mining ships, freighters, smelters, manfacturing plants, that sort of thing."

"And these facilities are run by civilians?" LaPierre asked.

"Well...yes," O'Neill replied. "Although a lot of them are slaves."

"So, you propose to murder civilians and slaves just because their jobs happen to include working in industries that support the Alliance's military?" LaPierre snapped.

Jack grimaced. It wasn't something he liked to think about but it was true nonetheless. Unfortunately, in a raid like he was proposing, there would be no time to evacuate the civilians and slaves and still take the targets out. Jack intended to order the strike forces to broadcast a warning and give each facility 10 minutes to get everyone to lifeboats before his ships destroyed the facilities. Not everyone would make it, but he just couldn't a lot any more time than that without endangering his own ships.

"It is unfortunate," O'Neill admitted. "But we don't have a much of a choice. If we do nothing know we are still going to end up at war with the Alliance, and we'll still need to take out their industrial capacity. We can do it now when the cost will be lower, or we can wait and do it while suffering severe losses."

"I cannot support this," LaPierre said flatly.

O'Neill looked at the other IOA representatives and didn't like what he saw. Shen was obviously in favor of the plan just as thoroughly as LaPierre was against it. Strom's expression suggested he was opposed, Chapman seemed to be in favor, and Jack couldn't really tell what Coolidge was thinking.

Under different circumstances, the IOA's opinion wouldn't have been as critical. As it was, the current President tended to see things more as LaPierre did. With a different president, if the IOA completely disagreed with a plan like this, said president could simply ordered military forces of the US to conduct the operations without international assistance. This president was unlikely to operate that way, however, which meant O'Neill needed for three of the senior representatives to sign on with the plan.

"I support the plan," Shen said.

"I don't," Coolidge said.

"I don't think we have a choice but to carry out General O'Neill's plan," Chapman said.

Strom seemed absorbed in thought, but he finally shook his head. "I don't like it."

_Damn, it's 2 for and 3 against,_ Jack swore to himself.

"I don't think it's wise to go against the IOA on this," the President said. "Still, General O'Neill's idea has some merit. Perhaps it's a bit too audacious. How would the IOA feel if we restricted this plan to secondary and poorly defended targets? These would not be of great value to the Alliance and would be less likely to provoke them, but would also allows us to show our strength in the face of their aggression. Against lightly defended targets, our forces could take out any defenses and give civilians time to evacuate any industrial facilities."

"No, this is a foolish idea," LaPierre protested.

_Yeah, it is you naïve idiot,_ Jack thought, _but certainly not for the reasons you think it is._

All eyes turned to Strom. "I suppose we can try it, for now," Strom said.

LaPierre grimaced. Coolidge looked none to happy either.

They weren't the only ones that were unhappy. It was a typical political response. The consequences of even limited strikes would be virtually the same as a full scale strike, except it would be less effective in crippling the Alliance's warfighting capability and wouldn't draw as many of their forces away from searching for the Theta site.

But Jack wasn't in charge, and he knew this was as good of a plan as he was going to get. He just hoped it was good enough.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: Truthfully, I didn't feel like this one turned out that well. I might do a big re-write of this one in the near future. Suggestions are welcome, of course._

**Chapter 11**

"It won't be that bad," Amanda St. Crowe said to 2nd Lieutenant Ben Jacobs.

"That's easy for you to say," Ben said. "You're so much better than everyone else in the squadron it's not even funny."

Amanda sighed. "That's not true."

"False modesty doesn't work for you," Ben smiled. "Seriously. Even Colonel Mitchell and Major Barnes are amazed at how good you are. I hate performance reviews," he finished glumly.

Amanda wanted to argue, but she couldn't. The truth was that she really was very good. Colonel Mitchell and Major Barnes had gone to some lengths to try to hide their opinions on her flying skills, probably because they thought if she knew their opinions, it would go to her head. Cocky young pilots tended to have a short life expectancy in combat, so her CO and XO were taking pains to make sure she didn't have reason to become overconfident.

Still, Amanda was pretty good at reading people. Mitchell and Barnes both thought very highly of her performance in simulators so far, and both had failed to completely conceal that sentiment from her. She supposed it was gratifying in its own way, but it mostly annoyed her.

She had always refused to accept anything that even resembled special treatment. Intellectually, she knew that Mitchell and Barnes were not giving her special treatment because she was one of the few female combat pilots in the Air Force, but emotionally it was harder to accept. Some of her professors in the academy had tried to bestow special treatment in yet another misguided display of political correctness. Those same professors had been very surprised when she had politely and very respectfully requested that she be judged the same as her classmates.

"Come on," she said, breaking free from her wandering thoughts. "Let's get this over with."

The two of them entered the base's briefing room. Most of the squadron was already present, as was Major Barnes who stood at the front of the briefing room next to roll out screen for a projector. Many of the pilots in the squadron had learned to hate that damned projector. That's where the recordings of their simulations, and more to the point, their _mistakes_ in their simulations were played for all to see and to be critiqued by Barnes and Mitchell.

A short blonde waved, and Amanda made her way to a seat next to 2nd Lieutenant Leslie Carmichael. Carmichael was the only other woman in the squadron, so Amanda had naturally gotten to know the petite blonde first.

Truthfully, the two of them were almost nothing alike and shared few interests besides flying. In civilian life, they'd likely have never become more than passing acquaintances, but her flirty squadron mate was friendly enough and they'd gotten to know each other.

Ben, being partial to blondes, was quite amenable to sitting near Carmichael. Carmichael was already becoming well known for being the 'life of the party' in the squadron, and her flirtatious nature endeared her to her fellow male pilots, but she had also seemed to take a keen interest in one 2nd Lieutenant Ben Jacobs.

Amanda often wondered if her cheerful extroversion was a mask she wore in public. Whatever she might appear to be, Carmichael was a very good pilot and a math genius to boot. Of course, Ben apparently also had a thing for nerdy girls, which explained why Carmichael could reduce him to babbling incoherence just by smiling at him. Amanda suspected that she secretly enjoyed being able to do that. Amanda assumed it was her friendly, if somewhat sadistic, way of making friends.

"Amanda," Carmichael said. "And hi there, Ben," she said smiling.

"Err, um, high Leslie," Ben stammered out. Amanda grimaced. Sitting poor Jacobs in the same room with Carmichael was like sending lambs to the slaughter. Not that Jacobs wasn't completely OK with that.

"Hi, Les," Amanda said. "Ready for our weekly ass chewing?"

"Of course," Carmichael drawled. "I always look forward to it."

Ben groaned.

"Oh, seriously, Ben. It's not like they're trying to make us feel like incompetents," Leslie said.

"So? They still do," Ben retorted.

"It's part of the job," Amanda said. "I'd rather suffer a bit of humiliation now rather than suffer having my atoms scattered all over some nameless planet in the ass-end of nowhere because my training had been subpar."

"Your blinding optimism humbles me again," Leslie said sardonically.

Before Amanda could respond, Colonel Mitchell entered the briefing room. Everyone quickly began to stand at attention but Colonel Mitchell, looking slightly annoyed, waved everyone back to their seats. "As you were."

Mitchell reached the podium and began without further preamble. "Major Barnes and I have reviewed the result of the last set of simulations, and I'm pleased to report that we are happy with the results. But, as always, there is room for improvement." Mitchell started up the projector.

It showed a split screen display of several pilots' cameras. The recording equipment in the simulators was identical to that used in the F-302s themselves. They kept a complete visual, communications, and sensor record of every mission.

"This is Section One, consisting of Tomlinson, Nelson, Diaz, and Huang" Mitchell informed the crowd.

Amanda was familiar with the scenario, of course, having run through the same simulation. It was a particularly devious simulation in her opinion, one that she was pretty sure that Major Barnes's diabolical, evil mind had concocted.

It had appeared to be a routine escort simulation. Four fighters were deployed to run an escort for a group of landing shuttles ferrying troops to the surface of a planet. The briefing had indicated that the planet was defended by enemy ground forces, but that friendly forces controlled the planet's orbitals. It was an interesting set up. Escorting landing shuttles wasn't something they expected to be doing often. Ground forces could be more safely deployed with transporters, but the technology to block Asgard derived transporters was becoming so common that the military had saw a need to devise alternate methods of landing troops and vehicles. The new landing shuttles were the answer to that particular question. They'd expected the escort to be uneventful with the biggest threat being ground fire and maybe the occasional Death Glider. After that, they'd expected to run close air support for the ground forces.

That all went out the window when eight Al'Kesh medium bombers had dropped out of hyperspace right on top of them.

Surprise was total, of course, but each Section of four pilots had reacted admirably in the face of a surprise attack.

The mission wasn't exactly one that was meant to be 'won' in a traditional sense. The F-302s were based off of a troop transport in this scenario which had very little defensive armament. The Al'Keshes had broken into two groups; one was sent to attack the transport ship, the other group went after the landing shuttles. The purpose of the exercise was to force the Section Leader to choose whether to save the landing shuttles or the transport. There was no time and insufficient forces to save both.

Tomlinson was the leader of Section One. He had elected to save the landing shuttles. Saving the landing shuttles also allowed the primary original mission to be accomplished; to ensure the Marines landed safely. Of course, the destruction of the transport left the F-302s stranded with only whatever makeshift air strips the Marines could cobble together on a hostile world to support them.

A pilot's normal instinct would be to defend the ship he operates from, which is more or less his home. That kind of thinking would've been correct if the Section Leader had had to choose between landing shuttles and something like a _Daedalus_ class battlecruiser or one of the new heavy carriers slated to enter service in the near future. Ships like that were very valuable, moreso than a group of landing shuttles loaded with Marines. The cold calculus of war meant that the transport, nearly empty once its Marines had debarked into the landing shuttles, was a very low value target. That was unlikely to be of any comfort to the crew of a transport should it actually face such a situation, but such was the cold calculus of war.

In any case, the simulation was a test to see if a Section Leader could override instinct and training when it was appropriate. Amanda, being leader of Section Two, had made the same choice that Tomlinson had. The leader of Section Three had not made that choice, however, and Amanda wondered if Mitchell would remove him from the Section Leader post in favor of someone else.

It was pretty likely in her opinion. It wasn't exactly a nice thing to do, but the military didn't have room for nice. It had to get the job done. The leader of Section Three was still a damned fine pilot and he wouldn't penalized directly, but Amanda was sure that he'd not be considered for a command position, at least in the near future.

And that was another thing this exercise was about. They were looking for Section Leaders and, ultimately, squadron XOs and squadron COs. The Air Force's F-302 program was expanding rapidly, and officers who showed the talent for command were likely to rise in rank very quickly to fill newly created command-level positions in those squadrons

Amanda was keenly aware that she was being groomed for command. She wasn't sure how she felt about being on what amounted to an accelerated promotion track, but that's where she was.

Mitchell let the recording of Section One's simulation play, saying little. Barnes did most of the talking, and most of it was reaming the various pilots for any mistake he found. Mitchell occasionally played good cop to Barnes's bad cop and offered a bit of encouragement when they did something right. The playback concluded, and Mitchell brought up Section Two's playback.

"This is Section Two, consisting of St. Crowe, Carmichael, Jacobs, and Oakley," Mitchell said.

After the recording played for a few minutes, he stopped it. "Ladies and gentlemen, pay attention to this maneuver." The pilots leaned forward, watching closely. Amanda just groaned inwardly, knowing what was coming next.

The recording showed Amanda leading her fighters head on at the attacking Al'Keshes. The front two had split slightly apart so that Amanda's fighter was bracketed on either side by them. It set up a deadly crossfire that had the potential to wipe out her whole squadron. Normally, she'd have just ordered her fighters to evade them, but taking the time to get out of the line of fire might've also given the other two Al'Keshes time to run down and destroy the landing shuttles before her squadron could stop them.

"Beta Section," she heard her recorded voice announce over the radio, "concentrate fire on the bogey at 1 o'clock. I'll take the one at 11 o'clock."

Amanda's wingmates unleashed a tornado of missiles into their target. The naquadah enhanced anti-fighter missiles were a bit small for taking out Al'Kesh, but her squadron fired enough of them to completely disable the enemy ship. At the same time, Amanda dropped her entire load of missiles into the other Al'Kesh which didn't damage it much, but did deplete it's shields.

As Amanda and her squadron were about to pass the remaining Al'Kesh, she disengaged her inertial compensators and engines. Coasting on a ballistic course, she had used her thruster controls to turn her fighter sideways so that she was facing a direction perpendicular to her flight path. Which also happened to align her fighter's railguns directly on the last Al'Kesh.

The Al'Kesh had not expected this, and it proved fatal. Amanda had laid down on her firing trigger, and railgun rounds stitched all across the Al'Kesh. It's hull breached in dozens of places, internal systems dying even faster than its simulated crew had.

It all happened in the blink of an eye, which was a testament to just how good Amanda's reaction times were. Her fighter slid past the broken and dying Al'Kesh. She restarted her engines and inertial compensators, leading her squadron after the remaining Al'Keshes.

The rest of the recording wasn't nearly so exciting. Amanda and Section Two had eliminated the enemy Al'Keshes with only one of her F-302s (Jacobs, in this case) being lost to enemy fire. Hers was the only section that had managed to finish the scenario with such light losses. When the playback showed Jacobs getting shotdown, Barnes just shook his head ruefully, and shot Jacobs a severe look. Jacobs sunk down in his chair, attempting to disappear into the floor.

After the recording was over, Barnes spoke. "Of course, the noteworthy thing here is Lieutenant St. Crowe's unusual tactic of cutting her drive and inertial compensator to make a passing snapshot on one of the lead Al'Kesh."

"It was an impressive bit of flying, Lieutenant," Barnes said. "It was also incredibly risky and borderline stupid. Though it worked out for you this time, this sort of high risk, high reward tactic could just as easily have gone the other way and gotten your entire section wiped out."

"Ouch," Carmichael whispered.

"I don't want you to make a habit of pulling those kinds of stunts in the future, Lieutenant. Are we clear on that?"

"Clear, sir," Amanda replied.

"Good," Barnes said. "With that said, it was a pretty amazing piece of flying and, this time, it worked out for you. Now, moving on to Section Three..."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Wow, it wasn't me getting an ass chewing," Jacobs said with awe after the debriefing session had ended.

"You see, Jacobs. Even our fearless Section Leader can make a mistake now and then and bring the down the mighty wrath of Major Barnes," Carmichael said.

"Very funny, you two," Amanda said.

"Lieutenant St. Crowe," Mitchell walked up to where Amanda was sitting. "A word in private, please."

Amanda stood quickly and followed him. "Yes, sir."

She followed him out of the briefing room and into his office. The office was very spartan. Colonel Mitchell had always eschewed decorations. She knew he was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, a fact that most officers would've advertised by displaying a certificate or something in their office, but Mitchell didn't seem to think that way.

Mitchell motioned for her to sit. He seated himself and began without preamble. "It's not official yet, but we're going to be activated, and soon. I will need permanent Section Leaders before that happens. What I need to know is if you're up to the job. And before you answer that, I need you to consider something."

Mitchell continued. "That last simulation was intended to teach a lesson about command. Eventually, you're going to be forced to decide who will you save and who you will let die. I wish it wasn't that way, but it's the cold hard reality of command."

Amanda considered carefully. "Sir, permission to speak candidly?"

"Granted," Mitchell replied.

"Sir, I'm not sure if I'm ready for command. That's not to say that I'm sure I'm _not_ ready either. The truth is, I just don't know," she said. "I only graduated from the academy a few months ago, after all."

"I thought you might say that," Mitchell said. "You're a good officer and very intelligent. It's normal to be concerned that you'll do the right thing in the sort of crazy, upside-down situations like what we saw in that last simulation. No one wants the deaths of others on her shoulders."

Mitchell's voice hardened a bit. "However, it is the _responsibility_ of officers who have a talent for command to step up and assume those duties, whatever her personal feelings might be telling her. That's always been true and is even more true now than in normal circumstances. We simply don't have enough junior and mid-level officers to fill Section Leader, squadron XO, and squadron CO slots that are opening up. That means some people are going to be put on a rapid promotion track to fill those slots. I think you are a good choice for Section Leader."

"May I ask what your reasoning is, sir?" Amanda asked.

"You may," Mitchell said. "Leadership isn't just barking orders and expecting them to be followed. Ultimately, your people will do their best in combat situations if they follow you because they want to, not because they are required to. Everyone in your Section looks up to you, Lieutenant, especially Jacobs."

"Sir?" she asked.

"That kid virtually worships the ground you walk on," Mitchell said.

Amanda grinned. She couldn't help it, even though it wasn't exactly proper military decorum. Mitchell didn't mind though, he wasn't too big on decorum anyway. "It's not like that, sir. He's a good pilot, he just needs a bit more confidence."

"Which you have helped him find," Mitchell said. "Did you know that?"

"I guess I hadn't really thought about it much, sir," she said.

"It's not that Jacobs wasn't already a good pilot. Most of this unit's pilots are inexperienced but all were tested for piloting aptitude. There are no second-stringers in this squadron. But consider this little bit of info. When Jacobs was assigned to your Section, his performance numbers went up forty percent within three days. Three days, Lieutenant. You may not realize it, but you have the touch for leadership," Mitchell explained.

"Thank you, sir," Amanda replied.

"So, what is your answer?" Mitchell asked.

Amanda thought for a moment. She hadn't fully thought of the implications of the previous simulation until Mitchell had pointed them out to her. Those implications were...unsettling. She had a horrible vision of having to choose between saving Carmichael or Jacobs, and she shuddered at the prospect.

But Mitchell had known what to say to her. It was her responsibility to step up to the task if she was capable of doing it. Mitchell seemed to think she was able to, and she wasn't immune to the allure of advancement either.

"I can do it, sir," she said.

"Good," Mitchell said. He reached into his desk and pulled out a case. He set it in front of her, and opened it. Inside were rank pins in the shape of a double bar.

"Congratulations, Captain. The paperwork hasn't cleared yet, but that's a mere formality that will be taken care of by tomorrow," Mitchell said with a smile.

"I won't let you down, sir," Amanda said.

"I never doubted it," Mitchell replied, smiling.

_He does have such a nice smile,_ she thought. _Oh stop that,_ she chastised herself.

She stood and shook his hand. "Dismissed, Captain."

"Sir," she said.

She turned and left Mitchell's office. She walked into the hallway to find Carmichael and Jacobs waiting for her.

"So, what's the verdict?" Carmichael asked. "Let me guess, 10 days of head cleaning duty?"

"Actually," Amanda said. "I got promoted."

Carmichael mocked disappointment. "And I was so looking forward to seeing you taken down a peg."

At that moment, Mitchell came out of his office. Amanda and her squadmates came to attention quickly, trying to look as if they hadn't been hanging around Mitchell's office in morbid curiosity, wondering what trouble Amanda had gotten into.

Mitchell suppressed a laugh. "Good evening, Captain," he said to Amanda.

"Good evening, sir," Amanda replied.

Colonel Mitchell walked down the hallway leaving the young pilots to their conversation.

Amanda's eyes followed Colonel Mitchell for a moment, until she heard Carmichael make an appreciative sound.

"So, Amanda my friend. You find our CO quite fascinating, don't you?" Carmichael asked.

"I have no idea what you could possibly mean," Amanda said.

"Hey, nothing wrong with him. Granted, he's a bit old for you, but he's really, really, _really_ easy on the eyes," Carmichael teased.

"Oh for God's sakes," Amanda said.

"Hey, nothing wrong with having a thing for him," Carmichael said. "In fact, I think it's cute. Of course, he's your CO so there's regs against it, but that it makes even better! It's taboo, forbidden, and oh so _deliciously_ wicked."

"There is no 'thing', Carmichael. And by the way, I'm a Captain now, so if you don't shut it I'm putting you on report for being a pain in my ass," Amanda said.

Carmichael mocked innocence. "You wound me, Captain." She threw an arm around Jacobs. "Come on Ben, let's go to the Officer's Club."

Amanda groaned. "Carmichael, don't get him too drunk this time. We're about to get activated and deployed and I need both of you clearheaded tomorrow."

"You're no fun," Carmichael pouted. "Don't worry, Amanda," she said more seriously. "I've suspected we were close to getting deployed. I guess things with the Lucian Alliance are as bad as the rumor mill is telling us. I'll be ready, when the time comes."

"Good. Because I have a feeling we're all going to have be on our best game," Amanda said.

"Now, with that bit of depressing reality dealt with, I'm going to go have a bit of fun," Carmichael said. "Join us?"

"Not this time," Amanda said. "I didn't sleep much last night, I'm really beat. I think I'm going to head back to the barracks."

"Sweet dreams then, hopefully including our dashing CO," Carmichael teased.

Amanda grimaced. "I'm going to get you, Carmichael."


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's Note: I don't know if it occurred to many Stargate fans, but Jack is actually quite a bit older than Sam. According to the Stargate wiki, Jack is sixteen years older than Sam. May / December relationships often capture our imagination, but there are some practical problems with them too. I decided early on when writing this fic to touch on that issue, and I finally got around to it in this chapter._

**Chapter 12**

_I hate Wraith,_ Sheppard thought with feeling.

He hated their damned ships too. He had arrived on Todd's flagship just a few days ago, and he already wanted out.

"Should've never agreed to this," he grated as he walked down the eerie corridors. The ship was literally a thing alive, and it was unsettling. The walls were made of some organic material, and the passageways and ceilings gave him an unpleasant impression of being inside the gut of some great monster. There were constantly small sounds emanating from the ship, always from something just barely out of sight. John was pretty sure he'd go quite insane if he stayed here too long. Coming to the ship's bridge, he forced those unpleasant thoughts aside. He had work to do.

"John Sheppard," Todd greeted in his usual measured tones. "These are my…officers, you may call them." Todd motioned towards three Wraith. These weren't the face masked warriors, but the more intelligent leader types.

"You will teach these three the combat techniques your pilots use. They will pass it on to their warrior thralls telepathically," Todd said.

Sheppard looked the three officers over. They were typical Wraith specimens: tall but fit, long, wispy white hair, disturbing yellow eyes, pale green skin.

Sheppard put on a big smile and waved. "Hi guys. Nice to meet you."

The three Wraith looked back at him with blank stares.

"So…my name's Sheppard. What are your names?" he asked.

More staring. Sheppard could've swore he heard a chuckle from Todd.

"Alright, if that's how it's going to be, fine," Sheppard said. Successively pointing at each Wraith, he named them. "Tom…Dick…and Harry, I think. Is that alright? You think you three can remember that?"

More unsettling gazes.

"Look, it's nothing personal, I just need to be able to differentiate—"

The center Wraith interrupted him. "We understand. Your designations are…acceptable."

"Great," Sheppard said. "Let's head down to the Dart Bay. I want to get this over with."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"How did the flight training go?" Todd asked.

"Not as well as I'd hoped," Sheppard said.

Todd nodded. "Wraith sometimes don't learn new concepts easily. Fortunately, once we do learn something, our telepathic abilities allow us to teach it to any other Wraith we wish rapidly."

"There's something I don't get, Todd," Sheppard said. "When I convinced General Landry to retrieve Dr. Weir, you were quite happy to help. Sent a ship to pick her up in fact. Now, a standard Wraith ship isn't very fast in hyperspace and the odds that you just happened to have a ship close to her location is pretty much zero. So, you clearly have your own reverse engineered ZPMs and I'd guess you also have access to any other tech your brethren have been working on. Question is, why all the skulking around and soliciting my help? Why not join up with the other Wraith?"

"They view me as a threat," Todd said. "I have perfected the treatments that were originally researched by your people that frees my Wraith from the need to feed on humans."

"Ahh, the other Wraith think you're breeding a bunch of freaks," Sheppard said.

"Yes, but that is not why they fear me. They are not fools, John Sheppard. They know that if I use the treatment to free all my followers from the feeding requirement, I will have an enormous advantage over them. While much of their forces would be dedicated to culling to just to feed themselves, the full power of my forces would be available for offensive operations against them," Todd said.

"So, why not use the treatment and do just that?" Sheppard asked.

"I lack sufficient forces at this point," Todd said simply. "They don't know that, however. They're more concerned with conquering Earth right now than fighting me, and I'm not yet able to challenge them. For now, there is an uneasy détente. But if the main Wraith faction conquers Earth, that will rapidly change. To prevent that, my forces will fight alongside yours, but my Dart pilots are more accustomed to capturing humans for feeding, not fighting large scale battles in space. That's why you're here, of course."

"Assume this plan works and Earth defeats the Wraith, what will you do?" Sheppard asked.

"Is it not obvious?" Todd said. "I will use the treatments to free my people from their need to feed and I will go to war with the remaining Wraith, and I will win. I will enforce use of the treatment on conquered Wraith. We will never need to feed again. We will be free to build our empire in the Pegasus galaxy without interference."

Sheppard didn't care to think what living under Wraith rule would be like, even without the periodic cullings. Sheppard had no doubt that Todd would conquer his share of human inhabited worlds. There wasn't anything he could do about that right now, and Earth did need any assistance it could procure.

"I am no fool, Sheppard," Todd said. "The day may come when Earth and my Wraith find themselves on opposite sides. But for now, we need each other."

"I love you, too, Todd," Sheppard said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Rodney!" Elizabeth Weir chastised.

"What?" McKay asked innocently.

"You have been poking and prodding me for three hours straight," Elizabeth said.

"I have not. There hasn't been any poking at all. Well…except for the half dozen blood draws," Rodney said.

"Dr. Weir, I'm sorry he's being this way," Dr. Jennifer Keller said. "He really is on to something related to the nanites, though."

"Please, no titles. Just Elizabeth," Elizabeth said. Dr. Keller hadn't been part of the Atlantis team for long before she'd been taken by the Asurans. Dr. Keller still didn't know her that well and was more apt to use Elizabeth's formal title.

Rodney sighed. "Elizabeth, if my theory is correct, and my theories usually are, I'm very close to understanding the base code of Lantean nano-tech. If we can decipher the nanite's operating system, it would revolutionize medicine. You're literally one of the most important scientific finds in human history!"

"Thanks Rodney," Elizabeth said. "I think."

"Listen, I'm almost—" Rodney began. A sharp, chirping indicator from his computer interrupted him. "Oh my, God. I've got it," he half-whispered.

"Rodney?"

"I cracked it. The base operating system of the nanites," he said in near awe.

"That's nice Rodney," Elizabeth, pasting a smile on her face. "Can I go now?"

"Sure, sure," he said absent-mindedly, absorbed by the data on his computer terminal.

Jennifer smiled as Elizabeth stood up from the examination table. "I'm going to go get some lunch, Jennifer," Elizabeth said, tilting her head towards the door.

"Sounds good," Jennifer said a bit quickly. "I'll be back later, Rodney."

"Yeah, sure," Rodney said, not paying attention.

The two women vacated the premises before Rodney could think of any other reasons to keep them there.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Elizabeth and Jennifer didn't stay out of Rodney's clutches for long, however. Once he reported his finding to his superiors, General O'Neill had requested a briefing with McKay, Weir, Keller, and General Carter. So instead of doing something she'd rather be doing, she was once again in Cheyenne Mountain's conference room.

General O'Neill entered the conference room, accompanied by General Samantha Carter. _Those two sure seem to hang around a lot with each other,_ Elizabeth thought.

"Dr. Weir, you are looking well," O'Neill greeted.

"Thank you, General O'Neill. You have no idea how happy I am to be here. I thought for sure that I'd never see this place, or any place ever again…" she broke off with a shudder.

"I understand," O'Neill said. "Anyway, Dr. McKay says he's found something that would interest us."

"Only the most important find of the century," Rodney said. Carter groaned.

"What?" Rodney asked. "It might really be the most important find of the century."

"McKay," Carter said warningly. "Why don't you just tell us what it is?"

"Right. Sorry. I cracked the base operating code and hardware of the Lantean nanites," Rodney said.

O'Neill glanced at Carter. "Could you translate that into English for me, Carter?"

"Sir, Dr. McKay means to say that he understands how the nanites software and basic hardware works. If McKay has truly grasped the programming language and the hardware completely, there's no reason why we couldn't produce our own nanites with our own programming. We wouldn't have to rely on second-hand Asuran, Lantean, or Replicator nanites that we imperfectly reprogrammed. Not to give McKay any reason to let his pride swell any larger, but this really is an enormous discovery," Carter explained.

"What are the ramifications?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, for one thing, we can make hunter-killer nanobots to counter the Lucian Alliance's new nano-weapon," Rodney said. "I doubt the brass will let us use it on Earth for security reasons, since there are some private firms that could detect our nanobots. It would blow our cover, but that's less of a concern on our allies worlds. I took the liberty of writing nanite code for that purpose." Rodney turned his laptop around, showing line after line of computer code.

"And that's not all we can do," Rodney said, getting more excited about the subject.

"Here we go," Elizabeth said.

"This technology will revolutionize medicine. Cancer? A thing of the past. AIDS? Easily cured," Rodney said.

"That's pretty impressive, McKay," Carter said.

"Check this one out," McKay said. Rodney brought up another file with computer source code. Next to the code was a diagram of the internals of a human body. There were…differences.

"These nanites, in conjunction with some minimal gene therapy, can go a long way towards improving a human body. With this program, the nanites can enhance a human's physical and mental faculties far beyond what would ordinarily be possible," McKay said.

"What kind of improvements are we talking about here?" Carter asked.

"Resistance to all known diseases, eight times normal strength, five times the normal endurance, hardened bones and organs that will resist trauma, faster healing, six times faster reaction speeds, and three times better vision and hearing," Rodney explained.

"That's awesome," O'Neill said. Carter grinned. "Could I, you know, beat Teal'c in boxing then?"

"All that and more," Rodney said.

O'Neill's eyes went wide. He looked over to Carter. "This might be the best day of my life."

"Oh, yes, almost forgot. Improved lifespan," Rodney said.

"How much improved?" O'Neill asked. "What are we talking, 20 or 30 years here?"

Rodney harrumphed. "Try seven _centuries_. Minimum."

"Seven centuries!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

"Yes. In fact, Elizabeth, your nanites are already performing that function," Rodney said.

Elizabeth's eyes bugged out. "You mean I'm going to live for another—"

"Seven centuries. Minimum," Rodney finished for her. "The nanites are able to curtail the aging process caused by imperfections in repeated cell division."

Everyone in the room just stared at Rodney. It was so quiet a pin drop would've been deafeningly loud.

"What?" Rodney asked. "I thought you all would be happy!"

"We are," Carter said. "It's just…a lot to take in. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we need to run tests before doing any human trials."

"Of course," Rodney said. "But everything is going to work perfectly."

Elizabeth snorted. "Rodney, the last time I heard you say that you blew up a whole solar system."

"Not this again," Rodney groaned. "I didn't blow up the whole system." He grimaced a bit. "Just three-quarters of it."

Carter felt cautiously optimistic. She had had far too many bad experiences with nanites to so quickly accept what Rodney proposed, but she knew nearly as much about the subject as he did. The problem had always been their inability to control the nanites. Now that Rodney had cracked the programming language, there was no reason why they couldn't make their own nanites just as he had promised.

_One thing at a time,_ Carter thought. "Sir," she said to O'Neill. "I think McKay's idea has merit."

O'Neill nodded. "Begin your simulation testing. Once the sims look good and the SGC's medical staff approves, we'll proceed to human trials. Good work, Doctor."

Rodney smiled hugely. "In that case, General, I'd like to get started immediately."

Everyone filed out of the conference room. Rodney and Elizabeth were the first out, though Carter suspected the reasons both of them were in a hurry were quite different. After a moment, the room was empty except for her and O'Neill.

"Seven centuries?" O'Neill asked. "Sounds great."

"That it does, sir. Our pilots will benefit from the enhanced reaction times and our infantry will benefit from the increased strength and endurance," Carter said.

"That's all very good stuff," O'Neill said. "But seven centuries. Wow."

Carter sighed to herself as a knife stabbed at the most sensitive part of her heart. There was a time, years ago, just after the Stargate program was started, when a younger Captain Samantha Carter had slowly and inexorably fallen in love with her older commanding officer. Jack O'Neill was 16 years her senior, but to a twenty-nine year old Samantha, Jack seemed perfect for her.

But they couldn't act on their feelings. Regulations forbade fraternization among subordinates by superior officers. Both Sam and Jack knew their duties and put their feelings aside. Sam, at least, had hoped that in time things would change and she'd no longer be under Jack's direct command.

Her current assignment was CO of the _USS George Hammond_. Given her position and Jack's position as head of Homeworld Command, she was technically still his subordinate. She was not his immediate subordinate, however, and she doubted anyone would've opposed a relationship at this point.

The problem that stopped them now wasn't rules. It had been quite a few years since Sam had met Jack. Now she was the one in her mid to late 40s, but Jack was getting into his mid-60s.

Age was creeping up on Jack O'Neill, and it was a hurtful thing for Sam to see. Sam was a smart woman. Even all those years ago when she first met Jack and started to fall for him, she knew this day would come.

Now, it had, and she was afraid. She was afraid to carry their relationship further. Jack had been in the military all his life, and he had accumulated the scars and injuries that went with that. She knew he probably only had 10, _maybe_ 15 good years left, and then she'd lose him.

And she was afraid if she went the last step, taking their relationship to something more than close friends, that she wouldn't be able to survive losing him. She believed herself a coward for that, and she was more ashamed of that than anything else she had ever done in her life.

She was ashamed because she knew fully well Jack still felt the same way about her. Jack might've been self-deprecating and he often played dumb where scientific or technical subjects were concerned, but she knew him better than most. He actually had an extraordinarily keen mind, and was good at reading people. Sam knew for a fact that he was aware of all her feelings on the matter. And still, he didn't push to further their relationship, because he knew it would make her uncomfortable.

_Jack O'Neill, what did I ever do to deserve your love and devotion,_ she thought to herself.

As bad as this emotional wound was for her, she'd learned to live with it, to keep the fear, pain, and shame in the back of her mind. McKay's announcement had torn that wound open anew and it bled freshly, because now Sam knew that there might be a way out.

And there might not be either, and that's what hurt so much. Who knew how long it would take for McKay and the other scientists of the SGC to perfect the nanite technology? She could easily lose Jack before then, and that would be the bitterest loss of all.

"It would be pretty amazing," Samantha said neutrally.

Jack turned an understanding, tender gaze on Samantha. It was all she could do to hold the tears back. "Yes, it would," he said. He continued in a more normal voice. "But we can't get too wrapped up in this either, regardless of how big a discovery it is. We have a war to prepare for."

Sam tried to smile, but it came off as more of a painful grimace. "Sir. Jack—" she began.

Jack shushed her. "It's alright, Sam. Everything is fine, everything is going to be fine," he soothed.

Sam nodded her head jerkily. "If you say so."

"Of course I say so. I'm a general, it says so on my uniform right here," he said, pointing to his name stenciled over his breast pocket.

Sam chuckled, her pain soothed away, at least partially. _He always did know the right things to say to me,_ she thought.

"I'd stay around, sir, but I'm due back on the _Hammond_ this afternoon. We've got a patrol assignment. I shouldn't be gone long, a week at the most," Sam said.

"Sounds excruciatingly boring to me," Jack said. "Take care, Sam. I'll be here when you get home."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Amanda could've easily been beamed up to the ship she was now assigned to, but she'd taken Colonel Mitchell's advice and rode one of the shuttles up from Peterson Air Force Base.

The shuttle was a fairly new ship in Earth's repertoire of spacecraft. It had been delayed early on in during the SGC's spacecraft programs in favor of the F-302 and the _Daedalus_ class battlecruiser. Asgard transporter technology had made the need for shuttles much less urgent. However, they were still necessary since Asgard transporters didn't work under many conditions, especially now that transporter jammers were becoming ubiquitous.

The shuttle was not especially comfortable. It was designed to ferry troops and a few armored vehicles from its mothership to the ground and unload them, all while under fire from enemy forces. Its designers had concerned themselves with survivability and speed; they didn't waste much time on creature comforts.

The shuttle's cockpit was fairly crowded. Besides Amanda and the shuttles two pilots, Colonel Mitchell, Captain Gabe Tomlinson, and Captain Richard Sandusky were crowded in. Colonel Mitchell had extended the same advice he'd given to Amanda to his newly promoted Section Leaders and all had accepted.

Amanda gazed at the star spangled heavens just above the gentle curve of Earth's horizon.

"Pretty impressive, isn't it?" Colonel Mitchell asked. "I never get tired of it."

Amanda nodded. "I can see why."

"Reminds what we're up here fighting for," Tomlinson said. Sandusky merely nodded.

"Is that the ship?" Tomlinson asked after a moment.

Amanda's eyes went to where Tomlinson was pointing. She immediately saw a glint of reflected sunlight off of metal.

"That's it," Mitchell confirmed.

The glint grew in size rapidly until it resolved itself into the shape of a battlecruiser. "Welcome to the _USS Daedalus_, ladies and gentlemen," Mitchell said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The _Daedalus_ was not as large on the inside as it appeared on the outside. That wasn't really a surprise to Amanda. There was only so much internal volume. The more of that volume that got used for crew compartments and storage, the less was available for things like power systems, engines, shield generators, weapons, and all the other major and minor subsystems that made the ship function.

The berthing spaces for the squadron were cramped, but fortunately, there weren't that many pilot berths needed. The _Daedalus_ was not a dedicated carrier; it only carried 16 F-302s. Fortunately, she had arranged to share a berthing space with Leslie Carmichael. At least she knew she'd be able to get along with her roommate.

Amanda had just finished stowing her gear in her cramped berth when the ship's intercom system came to life. "All F-302 pilots, report to the squadron briefing room."

Carmichael whistled. "Looks like things are getting underway in a hurry."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

After the last of his squadron's pilots filed in to the briefing room, Colonel Mitchell began.

"Ladies and gentlemen, first let me offer congratulations. You, the 563rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, have passed training and have been placed on active duty," Mitchell said. A small round of applause rose up from his squadron. "Now, the real work begins."

Mitchell activated the holo-tank situated near the front of the briefing room. The holo-tank was another small innovation he had at his disposal thanks to the information found in the Asgard database. It allowed a true three dimensional representation of any area he wished to display.

In this case, the tank showed the solar system designated as P3F-553. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is P3F-553. It doesn't have any habitable planets, but the asteroid belt has moderate deposits of naquadah and an abundance of industrial metals. The Lucian Alliance has established several habitats and a moderate amount of industry." Mitchell manipulated the holo-tank's controls, zooming in on a structure just sunward of the asteroid belt. "This is a shipyard and is our primary target."

Mitchell continued. "Secondary targets are asteroid mines. The mines are scattered all over the belt and there's no way we will have time to take them all out in the time frame we've been alloted. Several of the larger mines are situated close to the shipyard, however, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, we should be able to take them out."

Mitchell zoomed the holo-tank out a bit. There were a number of space stations in orbit around a nearby planet. He highlighted them. "These are habitats that house the workforce. Most of the workers are civilians or slave laborers. Under no circumstances are these to be fired upon. We wish to keep civilian and slave laborer casualties as low as is practical."

Mitchell traversed the view to an area on the other side of the asteroid belt, further from the primary and to the northeast of the shipyard. "We think this is a military installation. We believe it houses Lucian Alliance troops, supplies, and acts as a base for Death Gliders in the system."

Mitchell returned the view to the shipyard. "We will drop out of hyperspace here." A red dot marked the location to the southwest of the shipyard. "_Daedalus_ will move to destroy the shipyard in passing. Once that's done, if time allows, _Daedalus_ will move to take out the nearest asteroid mines. Our job is simple. We are to act as advance scouts for the _Daedalus_ so that she doesn't suffer any unpleasant surprises. Any questions?"

Tomlinson raised his hand. "Sir, what kind of opposition are we expecting?"

"Intel isn't too clear on that count, but we expect to see at least a dozen Death Gliders, and possibly as many as forty from their military installation. Yes, that would mean we would be severely outnumbered. If they have that many, we will fall back on _Daedalus_ and engage them from within the ship's point defense envelope. They are not going to have enough gliders to pose a significant threat to _Daedalus_ so there's no reason for us to run any significant risks dogfighting them out of weapons range of _Daedalus_. There is also a possibility of enemy warships since we are attacking a shipyard. Intel doesn't think there should be more than one or two _Ha'tak_ class motherships at worst," Mitchell said.

Amanda raised her hand. "What are our orders concerning civilian shipping, especially freighters?"

Mitchell nodded. "Freighters are considered targets of opportunity and may be destroyed after giving the freighter's crews ten minutes warning to evacuate. We will be extending that same courtesy to the shipyard workers."

"Listen," Mitchell said seriously. "The brass told us to keep collateral damage down, and we will make every effort. However, we are not going to do this with no civilian deaths at all. No one here is going to be punished for destroying a freighter or facility with personnel still onboard that ignored our warning, or even one that failed to heed it for whatever reason."

Many of the pilots in the room visibly relaxed.

"Any further questions?" Mitchell asked. There were none. "Alright, the attack begins in one hour. Get to your birds and get them pre-flighted. Good hunting."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Amanda sat in the cockpit of her fighter. She was sweating just a bit from pre-battle jitters, but she had it under control.

"Thirty seconds," she heard Mitchell say over the radio.

Amanda watched the counter on her cockpit display wind down. It seemed that every second dragged on like an eternity. After suffering the wait, the counter hit zero. She looked up to see the blue-white patterns of hyperspace outside the ship break up into a normal background of stars.

"Launch!" her radio barked.

The _Daedalus_ had room for four F-302s to launch simultaneously from either of its two launch bays. The squadron was arranged in two rows of four within each bay, with Colonel Mitchell and Major Barnes lined up next to each other in a third row in the port side bay. Amanda could tell that neither of them were happy about being in the back, but regulations required it. The idea was that a squadron's commander and XO were important enough that they should not be risked as part of the first wave to launch, even if they weren't expecting trouble during the launch, which in this case they weren't.

Amanda's section was in line first, however, in the port-side bay which launched before starboard side did. The grav-driver catapults flung her section forward at an acceleration that would've killed her if not for the fighter's built in inertial compensator. The grey walls of the hangar bay flashed by in an instant as her fighter was flung free into space.

Using the launch catapults wasn't really necessary, as F-302s in space weren't subject to the whims of lift and drag the way a fighter like the F/A-18E Super Hornet was when it launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier. However, it was considered safer for the F-302s to be moving at at least cruising speed when they left the hangar. This way if they ever did launch into a hostile environment, they wouldn't come out of their launch bays as slow, easy targets.

"Second Section," she said into her radio. "Take up holding pattern." She banked right and circled around _Daedalus_, her three wingmates following closely behind, all the while keeping an eye out for trouble, but none appeared.

Mitchell's voice issued from her radio. "Alpha squadron, proceed as previously ordered."

The squadron formed up behind Amanda's fighter and they sped ahead towards their target.

After a short flight, Amanda's sensors started showing contacts. "Contacts dead ahead," she said into her radio. "I'm picking up the shipyard and two ships. Gravitic sensors say their mass is consistent with two _Ha'tak_ class motherships."

"Acknowledged, Alpha Seven," Mitchell replied as he relayed the data back to _Daedalus_. One of the _Ha'taks_ was docked with the shipyard. With any luck, it wouldn't be able to get underway before _Daedalus_ engaged the shipyard.

Additional contacts popped up on Amanda's screen. "Alpha Leader, we've got freighters, ten of them. Looks like they're making the run from the asteroid mines to the shipyard."

"Understood," Mitchell replied. He rekeyed his radio to broadcast on all frequencies. "Alliance freighters, this Colonel Mitchell of the US Air Force. We are not equipped to board your vessels and take them as prizes or handle prisoners. It is, therefore, my intention to destroy your ships exactly 10 minutes from the end of this transmission. You have that much time to evacuate. Mitchell, out."

"You think they'll listen?" Carmichael asked over her radio.

"I hope so," Amanda said. "I don't take any pleasure at the thought of massacring helpless freighter crews."

The range between the fighter squadron and the freighters dropped steadily. Amanda finally released a pent up breath when a blossom of smaller contacts started departing the freighters.

"Looks like they're in a listening mood," Mitchell said. "Engage only with railguns. We'll save our missiles for any Death Gliders we might encounter."

"Confirmed," Amanda said. One of the freighters on her display blinked red as Colonel Mitchell designated it as a target for her section.

"Second Section, we have a target. Fire at will," Amanda said.

She rolled hard left and pushed her throttle up to maximum. Centering the freighter in her sights, she pushed down on her trigger and unleashed a stream of railgun fire into the freighter. The rounds punched cleanly through its unarmored hull. The cargo bays ruptured, venting atmosphere and refined metals into space.

In a flash, she was past the crippled freighter. Carmichael, Jacobs, and Oakley's fighters followed her in single file, railguns blazing at the freighter as they flew passed.

After Oakley's run, Amanda's sensors showed that the freighter had broken into three pieces and even those were rapidly coming apart. "Target destroyed," she said into her radio.

The other two sections were finishing up with their targets when her sensors announced a new threat. "Contact, forty-eight Death Gliders heading our way," Amanda said.

"Alpha squadron, fall back on _Daedalus_," Mitchell ordered.

The squadron reversed course and made tracks for their mothership. It wasn't long, however, before Amanda saw that something was amiss.

"They're not pursuing us," she said.

"Copy that, Alpha Seven," Mitchell replied. "Maintain heading."

Amanda was wondering what they were doing. The Gliders were moving at their maximum speed. They acted like they were in a hurry, but if they were, she couldn't tell where they were going. Common sense suggested that they'd try to intercept the attacking fighters, but they weren't.

_What else could they be after?_ she thought. She looked at her sensors and noticed…

"Oh God," she muttered. "Alpha Leader, I think they're going to take out the freighter escape pods."

The squadron's radio net was deathly silent for a very long moment. "Damn," Mitchell said. "They're probably slave labor. The Alliance is probably doing this to try to force us to engage them."

"Alpha Leader, this is _Daedalus_ Actual," Amanda heard Colonel Steven Caldwell say over the radio net. "Continue on course and stay close to the ship. We can't help the escape pods without suffering unacceptable losses."

"Roger that, _Daedalus_," Mitchell replied.

Amanda switched to a private frequency between her and Mitchell. "Colonel, are we seriously going to leave them out there like this?"

"It's unfortunate, Captain, but we can't engage them head on without taking significant losses," Mitchell said.

"But sir, we could defeat them and save those people!" Amanda protested.

"Yes, we could. Our missiles give us a range advantage we could use to whittle them down to a more manageable number before we closed to dogfighting range. Even as outnumbered as we are, we could win that fight. We could also easily lose a lot of this squadron, maybe even the whole thing. Colonel Caldwell is not willing to suffer those losses and, frankly, neither am I," Mitchell said.

"Sir, we're responsible for this. Shouldn't we do something?" Amanda asked.

"You're wrong, Captain. The only people responsible for the murder of those crews will be the Alliance. No one is making them pull the trigger on those escape pods. Granted, if we had known beforehand this was going to happen, we would've adopted different tactics. We will undoubtedly operate differently from now on," Mitchell said.

"But…" she began.

"That's enough, Captain," Mitchell cut her off.

"Yes sir," she said.

She watched, feeling sick, as the Death Gliders butchered the defenseless escape pods. "God forgive me," she whispered.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The rest of the battle was much less eventful. _Daedalus_ destroyed the shipyard without incident, taking out the docked Alliance ship in the process. After the shipyard was gone, _Daedalus_ had gone on to take out the nearby asteroid mines before leaving the system. The other Alliance mothership beat a hasty retreat, not wanting any part of _Daedalus's_ beam weapons but the Death Gliders, lacking hyperdrives, could not retreat. They tried a few hit and run attacks, but the F-302s missiles combined with _Daedalus's_ point defense systems had exacted a nasty toll. Amanda had shot down two Death Gliders, scoring her first two kills.

She should've been happy about that, but she wasn't. It seemed so…meaningless to her, after having left those escape pods to be butchered.

She sat in the _Daedalus's_ chapel. It was a pleasant enough place, if somewhat bland. Modern political correctness had decreed that the chapel be non-denominational. She supposed she could understand that.

The King James Bible she had with her was anything but non-denominational. She had sought to take solace in its words, but she was inconsolable at the moment.

She became aware that she was no longer alone in the chapel. Looking up, she saw Colonel Mitchell. She started to get up and come to attention, but Mitchell waved her back down into the pew. "At ease," he said.

Mitchell sat next to her, saying nothing. He knew she'd start talking when she was ready, and he didn't wish to pressure her into it.

After five minutes of silence, she finally spoke. "I was just thinking about when I told my father that I intended to enroll in the Air Force Academy. I'm not sure he approved of my choice, but I think he was still proud of me at the same time. He always had been protective of me, my sister, and my brother. I guess it was hard for him to let go."

"It's natural for parents to want to protect their children," Mitchell said.

"I guess part of it was that he knew what I was getting into," she said. "He was a Green Beanie in the first Gulf War. I'm pretty certain he saw some horrible things, though he never talked about it much to me, my brother, or my sister. I think mom knew most of what had happened to him during the war, but she was as tight lipped as he was. More so, in fact."

Mitchell nodded. "Some military parents actively discourage their children from joining because of what they saw and experienced," Mitchell said.

"I remember that conversation like it was yesterday," she said. "He asked me if this is what I really wanted. It wasn't what he'd asked so much as this look he had in his eyes when he asked it. It was like he was looking through me at something else that only he could see. It was really unsettling, I never saw him like that before. It was like he was terrified and proud of me at the same time. I guess maybe he was."

Mitchell nodded.

"I told him that it was a wonderful opportunity. I told him that a lot of people went through life wondering if they had done anything with their lives that actually mattered, or had made a difference. I didn't want to wonder that, I wanted to do something where I would know that I had made a difference, and following in his footsteps seemed the best way," she explained.

"That's pretty much the reason I joined," Mitchell said. "My dad was a test pilot, at least until an accident cost him both of his legs. He was terrified when I told him what I was going to do. Still, he came to terms with it and I think he was rather proud of me for it."

Amanda nodded. "Dad warned me that what I was doing would require me to carry heavy burdens. I didn't understand what that meant. Today," she sighed heavily. "Today, I understand."

Mitchell closed his eyes and sighed, regretting the loss of youth in one so young as Captain St. Crowe. "War is a dirty business, Captain. It isn't like the movies where we get to be the gallant heroes avenging every injustice. However bitter a pill that is, just don't lose your drive and instinct to do the right thing. What we're doing is important, it does make a difference." Mitchell smiled. "And hey, every now and then, we do get to fight the good, clean, righteous fight."

She bowed her head. "Does it ever get any easier?" she whispered.

"No," he said simply. "And if it ever does, that's the day you need to do a reality check, because things like what happened today are not supposed to get easy. If they do, then you've lost your humanity," Mitchell said. He looked down and saw the opened Bible in her lap. "Christian?" he asked.

She nodded. "Non-denominational evangelical," she said. She grinned a bit before continuing. "Probably the only thing my parents encouraged me to get into that actually stuck."

"Really?" Mitchell asked.

"Yeah. My dad thought I should've gone for a doctorate in physics considering how good I was at it. Mom thought I should've tried to get into Julliard," she said.

"Julliard?" Mitchell asked. "The music school?"

"Yes. I did a little bit of singing when I was in high school. Church choir," she said. "I was alright, but to hear my mother talk you'd have thought I was a child prodigy. My brother and sister even tried to get me to perform with their band on a couple of occasions. Mom didn't care for that at all, however."

"Why not?" Mitchell asked.

"They formed a heavy metal band while they were in high school. Mom thought that it was uncultured and a waste of their musical talents," she said. "Dad just got tired of the noise emanating from the garage. In any case, however, I've wandered off topic. Yes, I am a Christian and it's about the only thing they pushed for me to be involved in that I stayed with."

Mitchell nodded towards her open Bible. "Which book?"

"Gospel of John," she said.

Mitchell looked over and noticed that she still held her index finger over a verse to mark her place. She was on Chapter 15 verse 13. Mitchell read it aloud. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Mitchell looked into Amanda's misty eyes. "I'm sorry things turned out the way they did. If it's any consolation, the fact that it bothers you so much says good things about you."

She sniffled. "I never realized how awful it could be. I clearly wasn't anyone's 'friend' today."

"Captain, if you need to talk someone, I'm always available. If you're not comfortable with that, that's fine, there's always Dr. Bridges," Mitchell said, naming the ship's psychologist. "Hell, talk to Major Barnes."

Amanda's eyes widened a bit. "The harsh taskmaster? He doesn't strike me as the therapist type, or even someone who likes to talk about his problems, or anyone else's."

"You might be surprised," Mitchell said. "He's seen at least as much as I have. Regardless, just understand that there's no shame or stigma attached to it. What we do is very trying at times, and most of us need to talk things out at some point. Just promise me you'll do it if you need to. We need you. We need all of you. Every soul on Earth needs people like you right now."

"I just hope I have a soul left to save by the time it's over," she confessed.

"Me too, Captain. Me too," he said.


	14. Chapter 14

_Author's Note: This one turned a bit dry in my opinion. I may rewrite this one later. Suggestions are always welcome, but I admit I'm having trouble writing the battle scenes so that they're interesting._

_Backstory Note: The NRG is a prominent part of this chapter. It was introduced previously in Chapter 4. It is a weapon that accelerates a nuclear warhead out of what amounts to a large gun barrel on a ballistic course. It has no guidance systems, so it has to be used at close range to guarantee a hit. This weapon was developed because missiles proved far too easy to intercept with defensive fire as seen in Stargate Atlantis. The weapon is generally used on frigates and destroyers since it's difficult to cram in large enough power generators in ships that small to operate an Asgard plasma-beam weapon._

**Chapter 14**

Jorgan stared at the strategic plot and smiled.

The Tau'ri were acting the fools he knew them to be. In response to what was a clear threat, they had opted for a weak response. That response had caused damage, no doubt, but it was inconsequential.

Four outlying worlds had been hit. One had been a minor shipyard facility. That loss was somewhat inconvenient since it was near the Tau'ri itself and would've been useful for what he was planning. Nevertheless, Jorgan had assumed that that facility was likely to be lost and he had already planned around it.

Jorgan had assumed a counterstrike of some sort would come his way after the attack on Cimerria. Undoubtedly, the Tau'ri was attempting to put him on the defensive, force him to draw his forces back inside his own frontier. To do so would curtail his attempts to find this secret base that his spies told him was called the "Theta Site".

He sensed someone's presence entering the room. He turned to face Torias, his deputy. "Torias, you have done well as usual," Jorgan said.

Torias nodded. "Our spies tell us that the Tau'ri have started redeploying much of their fleet. It looks like a panic reaction. They clearly don't know what our next target is or what our ultimate objective is, that much is obvious from the deployment patterns."

"Good," Jorgan said. "We want them running around all over the galaxy as much as possible. The more they're doing that, the less forces they have allocated to defend our objective."

Torias scratched his head. "That operation will be difficult," he said.

Jorgan smiled. "Our new allies will make up any shortfall in firepower needed."

Most people wouldn't have noticed the look of concern on Torias's face, but Jorgan had known the man for many years. "Speak your mind," he said.

"I am concerned about our new allies," Torias said. "I understand the reasoning behind allying with them, it makes sense. Still, I'm not sure how much we can trust them."

Jorgan might've considered such a statement disloyal if it were anyone else, but not coming from Torias. "That's why I insisted they share their new power generation and weapons technologies with us. It maintains a balance of power between us and them. Once the war is over, there will be a balance of power in place such that a war between us and the Wraith will be so destructive that neither will be interested in pursuing it. We will have our security and freedom within our own borders, and they will have their...conquests."

Torias grimaced. It was one thing to fight against other humans, but this was something else. He agreed that it was their only real option, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"The next phase of our operation is starting shortly," Jorgan said. "Come here to watch?"

Torias nodded. "There's not really much else for me to do at the moment."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Captain Harold Ingraham sipped his coffee. It was a welcome pleasure to distract him from the fact that his ship was in the hands of the shipyard workers.

"Commander Kurtz," Ingraham addressed his XO, "give me the progress report on our repairs. And please God let it be good news."

Kurtz smiled. "You're in luck today, Captain. The yard dogs say that the replacement plasma-beam emitter will be installed by the end of the day."

"Finally," Ingraham said, taking another sip of his coffee. Like all _Daedalus_ class ships, the _USS Homer_ was fitted with four of the powerful Asgard weapons. Unfortunately, quality control still sometimes missed defective components, and one of his beam emitters had burned out upon its first test firing. Ingraham hadn't considered this to be a good omen for a ship on its maiden voyage, especially considering that it was Ingraham's first command.

In fact, it had been one problem after another every since he had been appointed captain of the _Homer_. His original XO, who he had hand picked, had been unavailable due to illness. The Chief Engineer assigned to his ship was a territorial pain in the ass to the point that he'd almost refused to let Ingraham see the engine room when he toured the ship for the first time. The ship's physician radiated annoyance when anyone so much as spoke to her, and his tactical systems officer had arrived to find her quarters redecorated by what was undoubtedly some lower deck clown they probably recruited from the submarine service.

Even the christening ceremony had been odd. First of all, his shuttle to the shipyard in orbit of Mathison, where his ship was being launched from, had been delayed twice for reasons he still didn't know. General O'Neill had been present at the christening and had spent the entire time grinning like a fool. He had seemed especially happy to announce the ship's name, _USS Homer_, during the ceremony. Ingraham wasn't sure what that was about.

And then one of his plasma-beams had fried itself on its first test firing.

"Alright, since we're still going to be here the rest of the day, let's set up a few-"

His tactical officer sat up straight in her chair. Ingraham could tell something had alarmed her.

"Lieutenant Commander?" he asked.

She turned and looked at him, white in the face. "Incoming! They're right on top of us!"

Ingraham looked at the sensor readout on his command chair's display. "Christ. Why didn't we see them sooner? Sound General Quarters. Sound General Quarters right now and get us-"

Captain Ingraham never finished the sentence. Before had even finished speaking, his world dissolved into fire before the darkness fell.

Three _Ha'tak_ class motherships swept by, blasting the shipyard and the _USS Homer_ into tiny pieces. Without slowing down, they proceeded to Mathison. After two minutes of bombardment, every human on the surface of Mathison was dead, killed by the _Ha'taks_ energy weapons in mushroom clouds of destruction.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Captain William Connelly, commander of His Majesty's Ship _Swiftsure_ nodded in approval at the holo-plot.

When he had first arrived at New Scappa Flow, Britain's most important off-world base, he had found himself assigned to command of a squadron of four _Furious_ destroyers and four _Ajax_ class frigates. The _Ajaxs_ had been on station for a while and when he took command, he had found that his inexperienced destroyer crews had been lacking in their performance by comparison.

A rigorous training schedule had remedied that, as well as making him the most hated man in the star system. His strict regimen had paid off, however, as the current exercise demonstrated.

The frigate squadron was attempting to infiltrate past his destroyers under cloak and 'attack' the shipyard complex. The frigate crews were good, but his sensor techs were getting better. Detecting the cloaked frigates would be impossible with anything less than the best Asgard sensor systems. Fortunately, his destroyers were equipped with the required systems and his crews had finally learned to make best use of them.

Two of the four frigates showed on his plot, creeping in stealthily to hit the shipyard. He hadn't found the other two yet, but the formation of the two he had found strongly suggested the others were nearby. His flotilla wasn't in a direct pursuit, but the range would continue to close steadily for the next thirty minutes or so. That was fine with him. He didn't want to alert his targets that he had found them until he was at his closest approach.

"Commander McDevitt," Connelly said, "I do believe this exercise is proceeding quite nicely, don't you agree?"

McDevitt nodded. "Aye. I'd like to see the look on Captain Burns's face when he realizes we've found him."

Connelly was about to continue when his tactical systems officer interrupted him. "Captain, I'm detecting a hyper footprint."

"What?" McDevitt asked.

"Correction, six hyper footprints, bearing is 214 degrees by 3 degrees," the tactical officer said.

"Adjust the holo-plot," Connelly said. "Let's see them."

The plot zoomed out. The planet of New Scappa Flow was due north of his position. Captain Burn's frigates were northwest of him. The four newcomers were considerably further away, lying to his destroyer group's northeast. As Connelly watched them, their yellow icons turned blood red.

"CIC confirms six Lucian Alliance _Ha'tak_ class motherships," the tactical officer said.

The six icons started accelerating and split up into two groups. The larger group of four was obviously on course to intercept Connelly's ships, the other two were accelerating towards the planet.

Connelly nodded. "I'd guess they're here to take out the shipyard. That's what that other group heading for the planet is probably doing."

"I should note, Captain, that they appear to have detailed no forces to deal with Captain Burns's frigates," McDevitt pointed out. "Undoubtedly, their cloaking systems have allowed them to remain undetected."

"Indeed," Connelly replied. "I take it you have an idea on how to use that to our advantage?"

"Naturally, sir," McDevitt said, allowing a smile that was anything but friendly to cross his face.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The four Lucian Alliance ships advanced steadily on their enemies.

The Alliance commander was feeling pretty confident. They were equally matched in numbers, but the Tau'ri ships facing him were much smaller than his _Ha'taks_. He knew that he had to be careful as the Tau'ri's technology was infernally good.

However, he remained confident of his superiority. The Tau'ri's advantages simply weren't enough to bridge the obvious gap in power between the smaller ships he was facing and his own ships. Furthermore, this type of ship was new in the Tau'ri fleet, and he would be able to bring back hard data on their combat effectiveness after the battle was over, which would put him into Jorgan's good graces. That was always a good thing.

The four destroyers were fast, he had to give them that. They charged towards his battlegroup in a futile gesture. The commander had a small moment of doubt, as he wondered why they didn't simply retreat when faced with overwhelming odds. It was clear that they had the speed to do so.

Ultimately, it didn't matter what their reasons were. The commander cast away his doubt as the enemy ships entered range. His ships opened fire.

And then the enemy reversed course. Their maneuverability was considerable, and their electronic warfare was playing merry hell with his fire control sensors. Due to their speed, he knew he couldn't force a closer engagement but, ultimately, he didn't have to. All he had to do was keep his ships between these four Tau'ri and his other two _Ha'taks_ until they took out the enemy's shipyard.

"Sir!" one of his officers yelled. "Four new contacts!"

The commander whirled towards his display and paled as four ships appeared behind him.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"NRG is charged and ready," the tactical officer said.

"Very good," Connelly replied. "Send the signal to Captain Burns and begin the attack. Their flagship is our primary target, Captain Burns's primary target is Sierra 2."

Captain Burns's four frigates decloaked and came charging up the enemy battle group's wake. At the same time, Connelly's destroyers stopped playing keep away and charged towards the enemy.

Each destroyer and frigate deployed a sensor decoy to confuse the enemy. Much of their fire was drawn towards the decoys instead of actual ships, though none of their shots had scored hits. Between the decoys and the new jamming systems the _Furious_ class destroyers and the _Ajax_ class frigates, the Alliance motherships had almost no chance of scoring hits at anything but point blank range.

The human ships weaved and corkscrewed in patterns that might've looked like chaos to an untrained eye, but Connelly saw the order in it. When the range finally got low enough to fire their NRGs, the ships came back together in a tight formation and made their runs.

Connelly felt his ship rumble as the NRG expelled its ordnance. The viewport's glass darkened automatically as the warhead detonated, as at this range the flash was so intense it could easily blind someone.

In a flash, Connelly's destroyers went screaming past the sluggish _Ha'taks_.

"Report!" Connelly said.

"Two _Ha'taks_ completely destroyed," the tactical officer said. "_HMS Dorsetshire_ was heavily damaged, sir. She's fallen out of formation."

"Damn," Connelly swore. "Communications, ascertain _Dorsetshire's_ situation."

"Captain, _Dorsetshire's_ first officer reports that they have heavy casualties and their major systems offline. However, their life support is functioning and are stable for the moment," the comm officer said.

"Commander McDevitt, have some of our medical teams beam over to assist them with their casualties," Connelly said. McDevitt could hear the unhappiness in his captain's voice, but he knew that Connelly planned and he agreed with it even if it seemed a bit cold.

"Captain Burns will finish the two _Ha'taks_ we missed. We will break off and intercept the two ships that are heading for our shipyard."

"Understood, sir," McDevitt said.

Connelly's destroyer squadron wheeled around and went blazing after their targets. The commander the remaining Alliance forces saw immediately he was outmatched. All four remaining motherships retreated to hyperspace.


	15. Chapter 15

_Author's Note: This one turned out rather short. I have an idea of where I want to go from here, but none of the ideas I have fit well into a chapter that starts out with Jack going on a personally very important errand. I don't usually like for my chapters to be this short, but I think it's appropriate in this case. More to come soon._

**Chapter 15**

The aid burst into Jack O'Neill's office without preamble, breathing heavily. He had obviously sprinted the whole way to Jack's office. "The Alliance has launched a major offensive," he said.

Jack looked up in shock. "What's the situation?"

"Seven outposts have been hit," he replied. "Six were a total loss."

Jack lowered his head in a grimace. "Thank you. That will be all."

"Sir," the aid said, departing.

_I knew this was going to happen,_ he fumed. _I told them and they didn't listen._

Jack angrily shoved his chair back from his desk and went to the NMCC. He knew he shouldn't be doing it, but he couldn't help himself. He had to know that Sam was alright.

Jack entered the cavernous NMCC. Row after row of workstations were occupied by various officers, keeping track of deployments. The entire US military establishment could be run from here. One of the reasons Homeworld Command had been housed in the Pentagon was so its officers would have easy access to the most sophisticated US command and control facility. Jack really would've preferred to house Homeworld Command at Cheyenne Mountain and kept Homeworld Command personnel separate. Everyone that worked in the NMCC had clearance for the Stargate program but, as a practical matter, it meant that more and more people had access to the most classified portions of the program, specifically fleet deployments. And the more people that had access to that information, the more likely it was that a mole could steal such information.

But it was a decision that hadn't been left up to Jack. Jack swiped his access card through a card reader, unlocking the door to a small conference room.

Jack could've had one of the communications techs do this, but he preferred to have some privacy and the conference room had full access to the Pentagon's subspace communications array. He sat down at the head of the table, facing a large flatscreen, and quickly punched in a series of commands.

It only took moments before Sam's face appeared on the flat screen. "Thank God," Jack said.

Sam smiled at him. "I'm fine, sir."

"I take it you've heard?" he asked.

"We just got the initial reports in," Sam said. "It looks ugly."

"Ugly doesn't cover it," Jack said. "We lost every shipyard outside the solar system except for the Theta Site, the Beta Site, and New Scappa Flow, and the only reason we still have the Theta and Beta sites is because they weren't attacked at all. And it's clear that the Alliance and the Wraith are working together. Three of the systems were hit by Wraith heavy cruisers."

"We encountered a couple of patrols ourselves," Sam said. "Nothing we couldn't handle. At least the British base at New Scappa Flow held."

"Yeah, that's about the only bright spot in this mess," Jack said. "At least we got a combat trial of the new destroyer and frigate classes from that one. It would've been better if Captain Connelly had been able to destroy all six enemy ships so no word on the performance of those ships could've gotten back to the Alliance. But that's unrealistic given how the battle developed. Connelly did a hell of a job."

"What are you going to do?" Sam asked.

"What can I do?" Jack half shouted, standing up. "They won't let us hit more important targets. These...gentlemen seem to be under the impression that we're not already in a war. We are, and we're losing at the moment."

"Something to think about, sir," Sam said. "You aren't allowed to use conventional tactics. Why not try something unconventional?"

"Like what?" Jack asked.

"It just occurs to me, sir, that we have some assets we're not fully leveraging," Sam said. "We have only made minimal use of the Jaffa intelligence conduit in the Alliance, for example."

Jack nodded, but wasn't sure using that asset was a good idea. "I had hoped to avoid playing that card so soon. Teal'c tells me that their guy feeding them intel on the Alliance is reliable, so I feel like we can do some good, but we have to be careful. If we overuse that asset, the odds of Sa'vel's moles getting caught gets pretty high."

"Still, that asset isn't much good if you can't use it," Sam pointed out.

"I know," Jack replied. "I've already been looking into it, though. The _Pensacola_ is already assigned to support NID covert ops. I think I can arrange for the _Daedalus_ to be temporarily assigned to the same duty which would make them covert units instead of front line units."

"Sounds like a bit of creative bookkeeping if you ask me," Sam said.

"Well, I got to do something, and even if it is covert I've still got to have ships. We can't very well waltz through the Stargate onto an Alliance world to cause mischief, after all. Besides, NID has been getting intel they've copied our iris design and installed it on the gates on important worlds," Jack explained. He growled, "It's just so frustrating, Sam. We could hammer them properly and gain ourselves some breathing room if they'd just let me."

"I know," Sam said. "How's Sheppard's operation coming along?"

"A lot better than anyone had hoped," Jack said. "In fact, Colonel Sheppard seems to think they can begin operations in Pegasus soon. That won't do much of anything to help us here and now with the Lucian Alliance, but it's still a critical mission. We don't want to find ourselves swimming in a sea of upgraded Wraith warships. At least not before the Theta Site can get some of the new toys finished and in service."

"You're right about that, sir," Sam agreed heartily.

"When are you going to be back?" Jack said.

"Day after tomorrow," Sam replied. She lowered her eyes, as if contemplating something before speaking again. "When I get back, sir, I was thinking we might set aside time to get together. For consultations, I mean, on how the situation is developing."

"I think that can be arranged," Jack happily agreed.

"Sounds good. I will see you when I get home," she said.

"I'll be here," Jack replied before the connection was cut. He keyed in another series of commands. An officer appeared on the flat screen. "NMCC, Lieutenant Jung. How can I help you general?"

"Get me a secure line to Director Patterson," Jack said, naming the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.


	16. Chapter 16

_Backstory note: The Horizon weapon was a strategic weapon used by the USS Apollo in the Atlantis episode "First Strike"._

_Author's Note: This is another one I found difficult to write. Writing an interesting battle scene without being repetitive of previous battles isn't as easy as it sounds. This one might be subject to a rewrite later. I've also pretty much got the climactic events of this story written or at least scribbled down in rought draft form. I expect another six to ten chapters to get this wrapped up._

Chapter 16

The _USS Vincennes_ sat in a geostationary orbit of a dead world in formation with Todd's hive ship. The frigate was like a silver minnow next to a great purple shark. Sheppard didn't care for that comparison much.

The Wraith still creeped him out. He had taken to eating his dinners in his quarters aboard the _Vincennes_ rather than in the mess hall. The mess hall was designed for aesthetics and had lots of nice window views where he could get a good, long look at Todd's flagship every time he looked out one of those windows. He found it easier to eat somewhere where he didn't have to see the hive ship.

_You'd think someone would've put some damn shutters on the windows in there,_ Sheppard thought.

Sheppard sat his meal tray down at the small desk in his office. He eyed the tray with suspicion. The cooks had said it was meatloaf, but he was seriously questioning what kind of meat it was. He cut the meatloaf and popped it in his mouth. _Surprisingly good,_ he thought.

Pleasantly surprised, he opened a report showing the most recent performance evaluation of his Wraith "students". It really was remarkable, in retrospect. He had spent a great deal of time showing them the same things over and over and they just didn't seem to get it. At all. Then one day, out of the blue, one of the Wraith pilots understood. Over the next few days, the other two Wraith officers experienced an epiphany.

After that, the Wraith he'd been training had said they were going to communicate what they'd learned to their subordinate pilots telepathically. The very next day, every Wraith pilot knew what the Wraith "officers" had learned from Sheppard. It represented roughly a one thousand percent increase in their combat piloting abilities.

It was a bit disquieting, actually. While in the short term it made this mission a bit less trying for him, it was a very sobering look at how dangerous the Wraith really were. They might not figure things out easily, but if they ever did figure out a weakness, they could exploit with a rapidity that would, in most situations, be decisive.

He was about to read another page when the communicator in his quarters beeped. He tapped a control built in to his desk. "Sheppard," he said.

"Colonel Sheppard, the stargate has activated. We have an incoming message from Stargate Command. It's General Landry," the comm officer said.

"Put him on," Sheppard said.

"Colonel Sheppard," Landry greeted.

"General," Sheppard replied. "What can I do for you?"

"I've been reading your progress reports," Landry said. "It's looking to me like you're nearly ready."

Sheppard shrugged. "The results have been pretty impressive. Todd seems to think we're ready, at least. And you know how much I absolutely trust him," Sheppard put in.

"About as far as you could throw him with one arm?" Landry asked.

"Pretty much," Sheppard confirmed.

"In all seriousness," Landry said. "Do you think you're ready?"

Sheppard folded his arms and pondered for a moment. "Yes. I could wish for more time for training, but you know how that is. There are always more preparations that can be made."

Landry nodded in understanding. "In that case, we want to start your operation in Pegasus as soon as possible. How does your target list look?"

"Long, sir," Sheppard said. "The Wraith are being a craftier than usual. The shipyard _Daedalus_ found is by far the largest we know of. They seem to be decentralizing as much as possible. They have a fairly large number of smaller yards. It's slightly less efficient than a few big yards but they don't have all their eggs in one basket, either."

"So, our choices are to attack many targets with a split up force, or to send a large force to attack a single target then?" Landry asked.

Sheppard nodded.

"What's your recommendation?" Landry inquired.

"Normally, I'd recommend we defeat them in detail by attacking the smaller targets with dispersed forces. It would normally make it hard for them to reinforce their dispersed positions and dispersing our forces while on offense means a few defeats here and there don't cause us to take severe losses," Sheppard said.

"I think I hear a 'but' coming, don't I?" Landry said.

"Yes," Sheppard confirmed. "Even their small shipyards have extensive fleet patrols and even fixed defenses."

Landry looked puzzled. "The Wraith normally keep a lot of their fleet deployed culling humans. They have to feed themselves, after all. Where are they getting the forces for that? Are they really building that many ships that fast?"

"That's what I thought at first, and that's definitely part of it," Sheppard said. "What we found, however, is that they alleviated part of their feeding problem. Every shipyard, except the big one _Daedalus_ found is established in a system with a relatively large human population, allevating the need, at least temporarily, for the Wraith to deploy their fleet hunting for food."

Landry was silent for a moment. "Damn," he said finally.

Sheppard nodded. "One issue is that a Wraith ship starts its growth in a facility on the ground. Once it reaches a certain stage it lifts itself into orbit where it finishes its growth. Unfortunately, to do this right, we would have to bombard captive human populations to completely knock the entire shipyard out. The only exception to that is the big yard _Daedalus_ found on M3V-544. We actually think there was a human civilization there at one point, but the Wraith apparently have finished culling it completely."

"What do its defenses look like?" Landry asked.

"Massive," Sheppard said simply. "Still, I know what you're thinking and I agree. I've spent too long fighting these sons of a bitches and I'm not excited at the prospect of killing people who happened to find themselves in their path. Besides, the other shipyards are so well defended we couldn't hit all that many of them at once. They'd eventually track Todd's fleet down if we tried hitting the smaller ones in succession."

"Your recommendation is to hit M3V-544 then?" Landry asked.

"Yes sir," Sheppard replied.

"Very well. It's your operation. Good luck, Colonel. I do hope you have a plan in mind," Landry said.

Sheppard smiled wolfishly. "I do."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Todd's task force of six hive ships and twenty four cruisers came streaking down out of hyperspace near M3V-544.

The defending Wraith didn't waste any time. A truly endless stream of Darts began launching from every ship and station near the planet, intent on swamping Todd's ships under by sheer force of arms.

Sheppard launched from Todd's hive ship in a Dart. He still wasn't truly used to flying the damn thing. His instinctual reaction was that a proper fighter should at least afford the pilot a good view. While in reality most flying was done by instrument, he would never be able to get accustomed to a fighter without a good view.

Todd's three "officers" were on his flanks. Sheppard might've been in charge of the fighter squadrons for this operation, but only the Wraith officers could communicate telepathic orders to their underlings.

"That is one hell of a lot of badguys," Sheppard muttered. He keyed the ship's communicator. "Alright, no heroics," he began. _As if Wraith were ever capable of such a thing anyway,_ he thought. "Engage from within the fleet's defensive fire envelope."

The three Wraith acknowledged him in that deliberate, lifeless sounding voice. Sheppard's Darts deployed in a defensive formation, tucked in close to their motherships. Sheppard got a good bit of pucker factor when he looked at his sensor readout.

_46 hive ships and well over 200 cruisers against our 6 hive ships and 24 cruisers. This had better work or this is going to be a very short battle,_ he thought.

Todd's task force entered range of the defenders, and the Wraith capital ships started exchanging fire. "Evasive maneuvers," Sheppard said into the comm. Todd's forces were going to take enough losses in the battle as it was and while he wouldn't normally be getting too broken up about that, he needed Todd's fleet intact enough to continue to hamper the Wraith while Earth prepared. In any case, flying in a predictable formation near their ships was a good way for enemy gunners to pick off his own Darts.

Sheppard's Darts broke wildly in every direction, weaving seemingly at random, never presenting a stationary target. It worked pretty well, but it was a tactic Todd's warships couldn't employ.

The defenders had targeted the lead hive ship and its escorts. A veritable avalanche of destructive energies smashed into the hive ship. Sections of armor plating, glowing white hot from the abuse they'd been forced to absorb, blasted away into space. The hull ruptured in dozens of places, venting air, water, and bodies into space. Finally, the hive ship simply couldn't take anymore, and her power systems let go. The ship was consumed in a white hot boil of light. The three cruisers escorting it were also destroyed by the enemy's weapons, but they were so small by comparison no one even noticed their destruction.

They didn't have it all their own way, though. Todd's fleet returned fire. Instead of concentrating on the enemy hives, he targeted the escorts. Cruiser after cruiser was wiped away by weapons fire.

"Alright, we're clear to hit the lead elements, at least until they adjust their formation to cover against us. All squadrons, move in!" Sheppard said into his comm.

After behaving so passively, Sheppard's Darts charged headlong into the enemy. Sheppard lined up his sights on the first enemy Dart and cut loose with his weapons. The enemy fighter died under his fire, but before he could even select a new target, he was among the enemy formation. Darts whirled about and snapped at each other. Ships died in spiteful little blasts all across the heavens.

"Beta and Delta squadrons, cover us. Alpha squadron, hit the lead hives," Sheppard ordered.

Two-thirds of his Darts continued their desperate dogfight, heedless of losses. However, it let the one-third Sheppard was leading get through their screen and in among the enemy hive ships.

"Target weapons emplacements, and fire at will," Sheppard ordered.

Sheppard's Darts stooped upon their sluggish enemy. The enemy's defensive fire was deadly accurate, however, and Darts lacked the ECM that improved the survivability of Earth fighters. A great many died to that defensive fire, but Sheppard had known those losses were inevitable. Taking their lumps, the Darts closed to point blank range with their quarry. They skimmed just meters away from the hive ships' hulls, staying out of the firing arcs of their weapons, leaving them free to rend and destroy. It all happened so fast Sheppard could barely process it. He acted on instinct, taking out one weapons emplacement after another.

Near the middle of his run, he approached the hangar bay of the ship his squad was attacking. He pulled up and got some room, then did a 180. He smiled coldly as he was rewarded with a clear view of an open Dart bay.

Sheppard laid down on his trigger and sent destructive energy into the enemy ship's interior. His squadron followed his lead, adding their firepower. The hive ship staggered, savaged internally and a third of her remaining weapons went silent as power conduits and control runs were damaged or destroyed.

"Their getting their remaining escorts back into position. All Darts, fall back," Sheppard said into his comm.

His Darts abandoned whatever they were doing and went careening back towards their motherships. He winced as he looked at the loss totals. He'd already lost a quarter of his Darts. Still, all the work he'd done training these pilots was paying off. In normal circumstances, they should've been wiped out by now. Nevertheless, there were still thousands of the sons of bitches in the system. _There's just no end to them,_ he thought.

His pilots won a temporary respite as they came into the defensive fire envelope of their own ships.

Sheppard's comm activated. "We are preparing to shift fire to their escorts again," he heard Todd say.

"Understood," Sheppard replied. As well as this hit and run tactic with Darts had worked, his loss rate was so high he knew that the squadron had maybe one or two more attack runs left in it. "_Vincennes_ had better get a move on," he muttered.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"We're coming up on the launch in 15 seconds!" the tactical officer said.

"Very well," Captain Donnelly said. "Proceed."

The _USS Vincennes_ plowed ahead under cloak. The Wraith hadn't detected them through their cloak, but the sight on the display was disquieting. While the Wraith fleet savaging Todd's ships was frighteningly large, the reserve force in orbit around the planet was scary enough. An additional 10 hive ships plus escorts. If those ships discovered _Vincennes_ she wouldn't last a second, and Donnelly's crew knew it.

"Brightstar devices are ready," the tactical officer said. "Beginning deployment."

The Brightstar weapon was an improvement of the Horizon weapon, which had been used by the _Apollo_ to destroy a large Asuran shipyard some years back. The newer version had more Mark IX warheads and incorporated stealthy materials in its construction.

Normally, a Brightstar could be fired at its target from quite a distance. Its engines were quite powerful and its attack speed was high, but not high enough, in this case. Wraith defensive fire was simply too accurate to guarantee that the Brightstars would reach their targets, and they only had two of them.

Deploying those two had been hard enough. The weapon was bulky and normally nothing smaller than a _Daedalus_ class battlecruiser could deploy it. The ship's engineer had devised a method of magnetically tethering two of the weapons to the outside of _Vincennes's_ hull, however.

Instead of firing the Brightstars from a distance, the _Vincennes_ would set a course directly for its target and release the weapons while still under cloak, allowing them to coast ballistically towards their targets, waiting until the last minute to release their warheads.

The first Brighstar's magnetic tethers were released. The ship gently pulled away, allowing the weapon to pass through its cloaking field.

"First weapon is away," the tactical officer said.

_Vincennes_ changed course. The first weapon was targeted at the surface installations, but this one would take out the orbiting Wraith shipyards.

Tension was high on the bridge. Captain Donnelly did his best to appear calm, but he didn't think it fooled anyone. His tactical officer was visibly sweating.

"Beginning deployment," the tactical officer said again.

Once again, the mangetic tethers were switched off, and the Brightstar passed through their cloaking field.

Unfortunately, someone on the planet was paying attention. The Brighstar weapon only disrupted the ship's cloaking field momentarily. But a lower deck sensor watch officer was looking in the wrong direction at the wrong time, and the disruption was detected.

"INCOMING FIRE!" the tactical officer yelled.

"Drop the cloak and raise shie—" Donnelly began.

He never finished the sentence. A massive Wraith energy weapon impacted just forward of the bridge, opening the compartment to space. A gale force wind threatened to blow him into the vacuum.

But before that could be a problem, a second shot impacted directly on the damaged bridge, vaporizing Captain Donnelly, the bridge crew, and most of the rest of the ship.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Sheppard swore angrily when he saw the blast near the planet. It wasn't the Brightstar warheads attacking their targets and he knew with dreadful certainty that the _Vincennes_ was gone. He ordered his Darts to return to their motherships. It was time to be somewhere else, and he knew it. Three of Todd's hive ships had been destroyed and two of them were going to take weeks or even months to repair. The loss of hangar space would've normally meant many of his own Darts would have to be abandoned, but in this case it wasn't a problem. So many had been destroyed in the massive dogfight that the remaining Darts could easily be accommodated by the remaining hive ships.

"Come on," he whispered. "At least tell me they got the warheads off."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Wraith sensors were good and had detected _Vincennes_'s disrupted cloak, but they weren't up to detecting the unpowered Brightstars.

The warheads targeted on the planet met with little defensive fire. Only one of the submunitions was shot down by defensive weapons. Bright white pinpricks of furious energy pock marked the planet's surface. Hundreds of Wraith ships in various early stages of growth were incinerated, aborted by massive application of heat and hard radiation. Three of the planets four major continents were scoured clean of all life more sophisticated than bacteria. The planet's crust ruptured in several locations, exposing the mantle, and a torrent of magma and poisonous sulfur dioxide gas vented into the atmosphere.

The warheads targeted on the orbital facilities were less successful, but many still got through. The Mark IX warheads sought out the shipyards and space docks without regard to their own survival. One after another, additional white glares of nuclear destruction marched across the low orbitals of the ravaged planet.

Sheppard brought his Dart in for a hot landing on Todd's flagship. Barely seconds after his Dart had touched down, he felt the familiar lurch of a jump to hyperspace.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Amanda headed to sickbay after the squadron's daily briefing.

Oakley had managed to get himself good and properly banged up two days ago. It wasn't his fault, of course. His F-302 had suffered an electronics failure when he was on final approach. He had managed to bring his malfunctioning bird in manually for a "hard landing" which was really nothing more than a euphemism for "crash".

He had come away with a concussion, a broken femur, and some cracked ribs. All said, he was lucky. That didn't mean the rest of the squadron wasn't going to give him crap about it. A little bit of good natured ribbing was fine, but Amanda resolved that she would keep an eye on it. Oakley and Jacobs both had lacked pretty significantly for confidence in their own abilities when she had been made section leader. That situation was changing but it would be easy for things to get too far out of hand and undo the progress they'd made.

When she entered sickbay, she pulled herself up short. Colonel Mitchell was already there, talking to Oakley. It seemed an amicable conversation, the both of them cracking up a bit at some joke Mitchell had just told.

_It's very noble of him,_ she thought. _He doesn't just lead his men into battle, he cares about them. Knows them. I wonder how hard it is for him when he has to order friends to certain death._

It was a frightening thought, but one that also gave her comfort, in a way. The day might come when she received that order that would mean certain death, but it was comforting to know it wouldn't be issued callously by some distant, uncaring commander.

_A great man, _ she thought to herself. _I'm lucky I got assigned to this squadron._

Ending her woolgathering, she stepped up to Oakley's bedside. She shook her head in mock disapproval. "Damn, Oakley. You've been in here all of two days and the CO is already having to intervene. What did you do this time, hit on one of the nurses?"

"I would _never,_" Oakley replied with the utmost dignity. He shrugged, looking thoughtful. "Except maybe for that redhead."

"I'd be careful if I were you," Mitchell said. "That one's got a fiery temper. You misstep and you'll have two broken legs instead of one."

"I can't take you anywhere," Amanda said.

"With that, I think I'll go before I hear anything else that could be construed as being against regs," Mitchell said. "Captain, come see me this evening after you're off duty. I have something to discuss with you."

"Yes sir," she said, hiding her concern. It wasn't what Mitchell had said that bothered her, it was the way he said it. She knew that tone of his voice he was using, and it usually didn't come out when things were going well.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

For whatever reason, Mitchell's request had nagged her all day. She had just gotten off duty but she was not looking forward to hearing what he had to say.

Mitchell hadn't said she need report to him immediately after getting off duty, and she needed to work some of her nervous energy out. She went straight to _Daedalus's_ small exercise facility. The place was normally pretty crowded, but it was pretty empty on this particular evening and the holographic sparring ring was completely empty. She smiled, looking forward to having the thing to herself entirely.

The holo sparring ring was a relatively recent development created from reverse engineered Alteran technology. It created holograms using forcefields which could provide a realistic hand to hand combat experience against a lifelike opponent. As far as Amanda knew, she was the only pilot on the ship that made use of it. It was more normally frequented by Marines.

She pulled up the list of programs and found her normal opponent quickly. She had written the program herself the day after Mitchell had shown her a similar sparring facility at their training base on Earth. It had been pretty easy, since a very similar program was already present as part of the device's base operating system code (she had no idea why that was). She'd merely adapted what was already there and quickly had herself an opponent against which she could practice and keep her skills sharp. She was pretty certain no one else used it. _And why would they,_ she thought. _It's not as if any of the Marines on this ship expect to ever have to fight an armored man-at-arms._

She clipped the sparring ring's remote control device on her left sleeve and brought up the program. An armored man-at-arms, regaled in full plate armor and carrying a longsword materialized before her. Stepping into the ring, she reached over her shoulder and smoothly drew her own blade, a modern replica of a so-called 'bastard sword'. It was a somewhat large blade that actually wasn't nearly so heavy as it looked. It could be used two handed or one handed. The handguard had hooks in it that could be used to hook an opponent's armor and pull him off balance, a technique that required gripping the sword from the sharp end. Amanda wore a pair of steel gauntlets just for this purpose.

She smirked inwardly. Her father had been a Green Beret. Everyone in her family had learned to shoot under his tutelage. Even her brother and sister had learned and they were actually pretty good, though neither had shown much inclination to continuing it as a hobby. Amanda had learned as well, but for some reason she'd always been drawn to the old-fashioned things. When one of her friends in high school had dragged her out to an SCA festival, she'd been hooked. She'd saved her money and had one of the SCA smiths make the blade for her and then she'd started attending classes. Her father shook his head in mock exasperation, lamenting that he'd tried to teach everyone in his family how to defend themselves and that the only of his children that had taken to it had gone off and learned a method of self defense that was 600 years out of date.

Not that she had a problem with individuals owning their own firearms, not at all. She thought it was a great idea. She'd just come to love the sheer physicality of working out with cold steel. Besides, it wasn't as if she really needed to be skilled with a rifle or handgun. She fought from the cockpit of an F-302 after all. She'd qualified on the M-9 and considered that to be plenty good enough.

The program began. Her opponent swung overhead without preamble. She brought her blade up and blocked, emitting a very realistic sound of clashing steel. She stepped back, getting herself some distance. She flipped the blade around and rammed the pommel into her opponents helmet, stunning him. She hooked the hilt of her weapon into his armored collar and yanked back, pulling her opponent towards her and throwing off his balance. She planted a foot into his armored chestplate, throwing him back a few feet. She returned her blade to its normal grip and moved aggressively, trying to to get to him before he could recover his balance. The hologram was too fast, however, and caught her swing with ease and shoved her back.

She fell into a familiar rhythm. As she got better, she had steadily set the program to ever higher difficulty levels. She'd been trying to to defeat it at its current level for a couple of weeks now, and she hadn't quite done it.

She became aware that someone had stepped up to the edge of the sparring ring. She spared only a fraction of a second to look over and saw it was Colonel Mitchell.

"Don't stop on my account, Captain," he said.

She continued her practice with Mitchell watching her, a fact that for some reason ran butterflies through her stomach. _Don't show off, don't show off, _she scolded herself. So naturally, she showed off.

_You are an utter fool,_ she thought to herself. She nearly got hit several times by the hologram due to her putting too much effort into form rather into effectiveness or speed. Her luck finally ran out when the hologram made a horizontal slash catching her across the abdomen. The holographic blade shimmered as it 'cut' through her and sent a strong electrical jolt through her. She yelped at entirely too high a pitch to suit her and doubled over. She reached over to the control on her left shoulder and deactivated the program.

"Well, I'll have to say, that isn't exactly something you see every day," Mitchell said.

Amanda shrugged. "I've always found it relaxing. Good way to stay in shape, too. You ought to try it some time."

A grimace crossed Mitchell's face as a particularly unpleasant memory of an underground chamber in England came roaring back to him. "Ughhh. Swordsmanship isn't my thing."

"Suit yourself," she teased.

"You're a bit of an odd duck, you know that?" Mitchell asked.

"You think I'm strange, you should meet my family some time," she replied.

"I wouldn't mind," Mitchell said. He nearly kicked himself right there. _Good idea, suggesting you spend time with one of your subordinates. You idiot._

"Dad was a Green Beret," Amanda said. "I think he's been itching to talk to my new CO anyway."

"Listen," Mitchell said. "There's something you need to know about. I'm not supposed to tell you at all, but I feel morally obligated to. Keep all of this to yourself. I've been told by higher authority that intel has confirmed this star system will be attacked within the next ten days."

"Any idea on strength?" Amanda asked, all business.

"At least sixteen _Ha'tak_ class ships plus attendant escorts," Mitchell said.

_Dear God,_ Amanda thought. "Sir, we can't hope to defend this system against that with a pair of battlecruisers and a half dozen destroyers," she said.

"No, we can't. Unfortunately, we can't simply withdrawal," Mitchell said.

"I don't understand, sir," Amanda said, quizzical.

"The way in which we got the intel is such that if we act on it, the Alliance will know that not only have we penetrated their security, they'll know where the leak is. Higher authority is not willing to lose that conduit just yet, so we have to make a credible attempt to defend the system when they come."

Silence reigned between them. Amanda finally broke it. "We're being hung out to dry," she spat, completely discarded formality or respect.

"I don't like it either, Captain," Mitchell said.

"What good is intel if we're not going to use it?" she challenged.

"A time will come when we will use that intel conduit to deal the Alliance a serious blow, I'm certain," Mitchell said. "But it's not going to be this time. I'm telling you all of this because I don't want us to lose any more people than we have to. I want you to adapt your tactics to be more defensive. The Alliance probably won't pick up on a small change in fighter tactics and, even if they do, I don't think it will tip them off to anything. Still, the Alliance thinks something important is going on in this system and we have to give the impression we're willing to fight for it, or we lose our intel conduit and if we lose it now, we won't have it later when we really, really need it."

As a matter of fact, the US really was working on something important in that star system. The facility on the surface of the planet was manufacturing Rodney's new homegrown nanites. Some of the equipment and personnel had already been moved so that the program could be quickly restarted elsewhere, but Amanda didn't know that and, honestly, didn't need to in this case. If worse came to worse and she was captured, what she didn't know couldn't be forced out of her under interrogation.

Mitchell's comments had clearly wakened a fire, an anger, in her. He could see it flashing in her dark blue eyes. He didn't blame her, but he was surprised by the intensity of it. _I guess the weight of leadership is starting to press down on her,_ he thought.

"I know this is lousy," Mitchell said. "But I need you to be with me on this."

"I understand my orders," she snapped. She sheathed her sword in its scabbard, steel ringing like a bell throughout the room. "Am I dismissed?"

"Dismissed," Mitchell said.

"Sir," she said shortly as she turned and left.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

The attack came two days later.

Amanda was in a flight simulator when the alert sounded. She threw the simulator's canopy open before the sim itself could even get shutdown and took off at a dead sprint towards the launch bay.

She hadn't even gotten to the main corridor before the world rocked wildly. She tripped over someone, she couldn't see who, and hit the deck hard. With a grunt of pain she staggered to her feet. The ship's internal loudspeakers came to life. "All hands to battlestations. All F-302 pilots launch immediately."

She finally made it to the launch bay to find Carmichael waiting for her. "Where's Colonel Mitchell? Where's Major Barnes?" Amanda asked.

"I don't know," Carmichael said, panting. She'd clearly ran at a dead sprint to the launch bay herself and hadn't even had time to recover her breath. Another impact rocked the ship, but both women managed to keep their feet.

"Damn," she swore. "Get to your bird. We're launching."

"Shouldn't we wait for Colonel Mitchell?" Carmichael asked.

"No, we have orders to launch immediately and I suspect we're going to be needed. We'll try to hook up with the rest of the squadron once we're in space."

Amanda jogged to her fighter, donning her helmet. Her crew chief was already there. "Bird's ready ma'am. Good luck!"

She got seated as quick as she could. Her board indicated her lane was clear for launch, so she engaged her countergravs. The grav catapult grabbed her bird and she rocketed into space.

And right into the teeth of an entire squadron of Death Gliders.

"Shit!" she spat, as she broke hard left, barely evading a stream of weapons fire.

She checked her scope and saw that Carmichael had managed to stay with her. "How the hell did they get so close?" she said into her radio.

"No idea," Carmichael replied.

The space around _Daedalus_ was a madhouse. F-302s fought a desperate and seemingly hopeless battle against legions of Death Gliders. Fully eight _Ha'tak_ class ships were pounding _Daedalus _mercilessly. Her shields held for the moment, but Amanda knew they wouldn't tolerate that kind of strain for long. And once they collapsed, that kind of onslaught would tear the ship apart in short order.

"Bandits on our tail, six of them," Carmichael called out.

Amanda and Carmichael swung their fighters through a myriad of twists and turns, trying to shake their pursuers but it just wasn't working. "Enough," Amanda said. "Thach Weave."

The Thach Weave was an old aerial combat tactic developed at the beginning of World War 2 by a US Navy fighter pilot. At the beginning of the war, they found themselves at a disadvantage against considerably more maneuverable Japanese. The Thach Weave was a maneuver where two wingman would separate from each other in generally opposite directions. Normally, the enemy would follow one wingman, the 'bait' fighter. The two wingmen would then turn back towards each other, allowing the other wingman to engage the enemies pursuing the bait fighter.

Amanda and Carmichael broke in separate directions. The Death Gliders split up, some pursuing Carmichael, some staying on Amanda.

Amanda frowned. _Human pilots probably wouldn't have done that. It leaves the pursuers thinned out and more vulnerable to being defeated in detail._

Not that it mattered. It just meant that Amanda would engage the Gliders on Carmichael's tail and Carmichael would engage the Gliders on her tail.

They turned back towards each other. Carmichael only had two pursuers, but Amanda had four. Missile lock tones screamed and both women launched missiles. Space went mad as it was filled with missiles and exploding fighters. Unable to keep track of it all, Amanda trusted to instinct as she shot the rapids of destroyed enemies.

Amanda and Carmichael both came through unscathed, though Amanda still had one pursuer dogging her tail. "Enough of this," she grated.

She cut out her inertial compensator and spun her fighter 180 degrees. Without the compensator, she continued on her previous course even though she was now facing the opposite direction. The Death Glider pilot had assumed he would continue chasing her and was quite surprised to be staring down the business end of her railguns. The last thing he saw was the streak of incoming rounds smashing into his fighter.

Amanda re-engaged her compensators and pulled away from the battle for a moment.

_Daedalus_ wasn't looking so good. Her shields were weakening. The shields were so weak at that point that some small portion of each shot from the _Ha'taks_ were getting through. The starboard side of the ship had a gaping hole that was spewing debris and atmosphere. Clearly, they'd managed to pinpoint the ship's location and come out of hyper right on top of her. They got their first hits in before _Daedalus_ could even get her shields up.

"Oh God," Carmichael whispered into her radio. "That's starboard side. They hit sickbay."

Sickbay. Where Oakley was laid up with his broken femur. It hit Amanda like a punch to the gut. Oakley was dead. One of her pilots who was her responsibility.

She ground her teeth together against the blinding self-loathing. _There's no time for this._

"Looks like you two could use a hand," her radio crackled.

Amanda checked her scope and found the source of the transmission, two approaching F-302s. Their identity registered. "Colonel Mitchell, Major Barnes. Nice to see the two of you are still alive."

"That's sweet of you to say so, Captain," Major Barnes replied sardonically.

"You and Carmichael hook up with us," Mitchell said. "_Daedalus's _shields are buckling and we won't be here for much longer. We have to keep the Death Gliders occupied as long as possible to give the base on the planet time to evacuate." Amanda was tempted to rebuke him, knowing that they had been hung out as sacrificial lambs to keep up a charade, but orders were orders. She held her tongue.

"We got a group of twelve breaking for the planet," Mitchell said. "How many missiles do we have left?"

"I have two," Amanda replied.

"One left," Carmichael said.

"Major Barnes and I are out. That's three birds, leaving their nine against our four for a dogfight," Mitchell said. "Let's go."

The four fighters broke towards the planet and went to maximum power. The Death Glider was a bit more agile than the F-302, but one advantage US pilots had was that the F-302 was a good bit faster than the Death Glider, especially in space. The four fighters made ground on their enemy quickly.

"Missile range," Mitchell called out. "Setting targets. Fire when you have a good lock."

Two of the Death Gliders blinked on Amanda's screen. She set the computer to lock on to both of them. "Fox 3, two away!" she called out as she fired her last two missiles.

Carmichael launched at the same time. All three birds flew true, and suddenly there were 'only' nine Death Gliders. The enemy fighters formation broke apart into two groups, wheeling around to face their attackers.

The nine Gliders unleashed a torrent of orange bolts at the F-302s. Amanda and her wingmates broke their formation and engaged in as much random twisting and turning as they could. She brought the nose of her fighter back in line with the Gliders, lining one up and dispatching it with her railguns as she swooped past.

"Bandits on our tail, three of them," Carmichael called out.

Mitchell broke in. "Thach Weave," he said.

Amanda and Carmichael broke left while Mitchell and Barnes broke right. This time, all of the Death Gliders followed Mitchell and Barnes.

Amanda looped slightly 'above' Mitchell and Barnes so that when they came back together, she was stooping down on the Death Gliders from 'above'. Such concepts as altitude didn't have any meaning in space, but it did reduce the chances of friendly fire.

Amanda and Carmichael unleashed a storm of railgun fire into the enemy Gliders, popping them like exploding popcorn. Amanda cut her inertial compensators as she passed and slewed her nose perpendicular to her flight path. She was able to line up her railguns this way and take out another Death Glider in passing.

_Major Barnes is going to kill me when he sees me doing that,_ she mused.

She hauled her fighter around to pursue the last two Gliders.

"I'm hit!" Carmichael called out over the radio. "Port side engine is out, losing speed!"

She brought the enemy Gliders into view and they were dangerously close to Mitchell's and Barnes's fighters. _They must have lost speed dodging enemy fire. Oh, God, they're too close._

Way too close. The Gliders were going to fire and at that range, there was no way they could miss. Time slowed as an icy knot formed in her gut. She had to choose whether to save Barnes or Mitchell and she knew she couldn't save them both. Carmichael was too far away to help due to engine damage.

She moved her control stick.

She lined up her target in her sights.

She pulled the firing trigger...

And the Death Glider pursuing Mitchell blew apart.

Major Barnes died with his fighter less than a second later.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

_What have I done?_ She thought.

She stared at the section of sky that Barnes's fighter had occupied, transfixed.

She became vaguely aware of some other sound, but it didn't seem that important.

_He's dead because of me. Because I chose Mitchell over him and I chose Mitchell because...because..._

She just couldn't admit it, even in her own thoughts.

"Captain!" her radio barked. She came back to herself. "Go ahead Colonel," she replied.

"Fall back to the damn ship! We're leaving!"

She absent-mindedly turned her fighter around and followed along Mitchell and Carmichael's wing.

She pulled up alongside Carmichael's fighter and inspected the damaged. The port side engine was just gone, but the fighter was still marginally space-worthy.

"How are you doing over there Carmichael?" Amanda asked.

"Cockpit lost pressure seal, I had to seal my flightsuit. I think I'm alright otherwise," Carmichael replied. Her voice sounded strange to Amanda, and it was likely Carmichael didn't get her suit sealed before she was exposed to some vacuum. She might have other injuries.

"You sure?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah, I'm good for now," Carmichael replied.

Her radio crackled with a new voice. "This is Colonel Caldwell, to all fighters. Our shields are mostly gone, we have to jump out soon. Use emergency landing procedures. All fighters have 90 seconds to dock, we can't wait any longer than that."

Amanda checked their speed and did the math, and that icy feeling in her gut returned.

Carmichael wasn't going to make it. Even if she shutdown her inertial compensators and went to maximum engine power, she couldn't generate enough acceleration to reach _Daedalus_ in time.

"You two go on ahead. I'm not going to make it and we all know it," Carmichael said.

"NO!" Amanda barked. "We are not leaving you here."

"Captain," Mitchell cut in. "There's nothing we can do."

"Like hell," Amanda protested. "If Carmichael doesn't leave, then I don't leave!"

"Captain," Mitchell said, with ice in his voice. "We have orders to return to the ship. We will carry them out."

"But sir..."

"Enough!" Mitchell said.

"It's OK," Carmichael said, with amazing calm. "There's a batch of badguys coming up after us anyway, you guys are going to need a distraction."

Silence reigned over the radio.

"Amanda," Carmichael said softly. "I knew this could happen when I signed up. No regrets."

Her eyes stinging, Amanda replied. "Understood. In that case, Lieutenant, please provide us a distraction." Giving the order killed her inside. She could've let Mitchell do it, but deep down she knew that Carmichael was her responsibility and putting that burden off on someone else just seemed cowardly to her.

"Yes, ma'am," Carmichael replied. "It's been an honor. Tell Ben, if he's still alive, that...tell him..."

"I'll tell him," Amanda cut her off.

"Thank you," Carmichael replied.

Amanda and Mitchell came screaming into the launch bay. Grav catchers caught their fighters in a bit of brutal deceleration. The last thing she saw before _Daedalus_ jumped to hyperspace was Carmichael's fighter fighting a hopeless battle against a half dozen Death Gliders.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Captain, have a seat," Mitchell motioned towards the chair across from his desk.

"If you don't mind sir, I prefer to stand," Amanda replied.

"As you wish," Mitchell said. "Look, I know things didn't go well, but I want you to know something about what happened with Major Barnes. In these situations, we are taught to save higher ranking officers first. That's not particularly fair and I don't even like it, but that is what we are told to do. As for Carmichael and Oakley, there was nothing you could've done. Nothing any of us could've done. And Carmichael's distraction saved lives, I'm going to recommend her for the Silver Star. She earned it."

While what Mitchell had said about Barnes was true, he felt dirty for saying it, like he was staining his dead friend's honor. He wasn't taking it too well. On the other hand, the fury and anguish flashing through Amanda's icy blue eyes told him well enough she wasn't handling it all that well either.

_I shouldn't have told her about the ruse,_ Mitchell thought. _It was too much to put on her shoulders._ But he couldn't undo it now, so he just had to go with it.

"Make no mistake, if the situation had been reversed and Stephen had been my superior, you would've been correct to save him instead of me," Mitchell said. It didn't make him feel much better saying it, but it helped. A little.

Something else flashed through Amanda's eyes, Mitchell could've sworn it looked like _shame_ of all things.

"I understand," she said.

Mitchell sighed. "Tell me what's on your mind," he said.

"With all due respect, sir, there's not much to say," she said. "Three members of this squadron are dead and I'm responsible for at least one of them. What's worse, the entire battle was a ruse. They all died for nothing."

A bolt of anger shot through Mitchell like a bullet, bringing him to his feet. His eyes bored into hers and he spoke with an icy tone. "Understand this right now, Captain. Barnes, Carmichael, and Oakley did NOT die for nothing. They died for their country. I never want to hear anything like that come out of your mouth ever again. Do you copy that, Captain?"

Her eyes averted from his eyes. "Copy, sir," she whispered, aghast at what she'd said. Major Barnes had been close to Mitchell, and now she was mortified at what she'd said about Mitchell's friend so soon after his death. "I apologize, sir. I didn't mean-"

Mitchell sat back down and waved her to stop. "Just...forget it. It's been a long day and we've been under a heavy load. If you don't mind, though, I need to get back to some of this paperwork. I have to write a few letters."

Amanda nodded in understanding. She was certain Mitchell wasn't looking forward to writing letters to the families of the dead. Owing to the secrecy of the Stargate program, it basically entailed concocting a series of complete falsehoods to explain to parents, siblings, and children why their loved ones were dead and never coming home.

She turned and left without another word. Mitchell stared down at the manila folder that contained Major Barnes's personnel jacket.

_It should've been me,_ Mitchell thought to himself. _Regulations be damned._

Mitchell drew back and and hammered his fist into his metal desk. The pain in his hand was a welcome, if temporary, distraction. His anger at the situation sated for the moment, he went back to writing creative lies to tell Major Barnes's widow and son.

_All to save a single intelligence source,_ he fumed. _This had better have been worth it._


	19. Chapter 19

_Author's Note: A bit of long overdue fluff for this chapter._

**Chapter 19**

"There she is," the man to Jack's right said.

"Beautiful. You know, in a really large, probably overcompensating for something kind of way," Jack replied.

Captain David Jameson chuckled. "Easy now, that's my ship you're talking about."

"Right," Jack said. "You Navy types. Why don't you just marry the damn thing and get it over with?"

The shuttle glided past the newly completed battleship _USS North Carolina_ and Jack had to admit she really was beautiful. The largest, most powerful warship Earth had ever built, she was intended to be the queen of the space lanes. She had three layers of shields, quadruple redundant critical systems, six Asgard neutrino-ion generators (any three of which could run the ship at peak performance) and a whopping 40 Heavy Asgard Plasma Beam weapons. She also had a trainload of point defense weapons, no less than three backup bridges, and a dozen heavy liquid naquadah power generators scattered throughout her hull which internal systems could draw power from if they were cut off from the main power grid by battle damage.

In form, she somewhat resembled the _Daedalus_ class, except she was much, much larger. Ten times the length of a _Daedalus _in fact. She lacked the large docking bays however, and had only a pair of small shuttle bays on either side. She carried no fighters and didn't need them. The main hull also tapered down in size towards the front of the ship. It was on this tapered hull section that most of the heavy weapons were mounted, maximizing the ship's firing arcs. All 40 of her heavy plasma beams could fire forward; the sides, bottom, top, and rear could be covered by up to 16 beams.

She cost as much as six battlecruisers, but had well over ten times as much firepower as those same six battlecruisers, and could absorb far more punishment than six battlecruisers.

Jameson chuckled again. "Construction is officially complete. She still needs a shakedown cruise and thorough testing though. She should be fully ready within six weeks, two months at the most."

Jack's face darkened. "That's one thing I wanted to talk to you about and why I came all the way out here to the Theta Site."

A concerned look crossed Jameson's face. "What is it, sir?"

"I...have a bad feeling," Jack said. "The Alliance is up to something big, but we don't know what yet. Their recent raids have a sort of pattern to them. I don't know what it is yet, I just have a feeling we might need you before you've had time for a complete shakedown."

Jameson frowned. "I hope you're wrong, sir. The _North Carolina_ is impressive and I believe she will become a welcome addition to our fleet, but she's as yet untested. If we throw her into combat without a proper shakedown..."

"I know," Jack interrupted. "I don't care for it either. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm letting my worries and stress get to me. The IOA certainly isn't helping in that regard," he muttered.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Jameson said.

"Keep this to yourself," Jack said. "The IOA is simply _reacting_ to Alliance attacks. They're not being _pro-active_. Initially I was opposed when General Maynard and I wanted to start launching our own raids. I was finally given permission for a limited response because the IOA thought it would not provoke the Alliance to escalate the conflict."

Jameson blinked. "Are you serious? They actually thought that?"

"I know," Jack said. "Still, General Maynard and I felt that some response was better than none, so we did what we were allowed to do. The Alliance, of course, ratcheted up the pressure further. Their choice of targets is what is what has my spidey sense going off. They hit our facility where we were gearing up to start producing nanites en masse. It was a worthwhile target for them, no doubt. The nanite program itself, however, is one the IOA backed heavily."

Jack continued after a pause. "The IOA, of course, about shit a brick when we got the news. Fortunately, we moved the essential equipment and personnel out before the attack. Our intel conduit in the Alliance gave us warning, though we lost three destroyers and a battlecruiser in the attack. We had to appear to resist them to keep up the ruse so they wouldn't know we had a mole in their midst."

Jameson winced. "Damn, that's rough."

Jack nodded. "What's worse is that the enemy fleet jumped out of hyper right on top of our fleet. I'm pretty sure they had their own mole feeding them our fleet's movements. In any case, the IOA immediately demanded we start deploying ever heavier picket forces in systems where certain research operations are ongoing. These operations are, of course, pet projects of certain IOA coucilors. Not that some of those projects aren't worthwhile, it just seems...convenient."

Jameson nodded. "They know which buttons to push to get the IOA to dance to their tune."

"Yep," Jack agreed. "Besides the obvious massive security breach that implies, our forces are very dispersed at this moment because of their insistence on trying to protect everything at once. I fear we risk being defeated in detail. Either that, or they've found the Theta Site and are trying to thin down defenses so they can take it out."

"That's a rather unsettling thought," Jameson said. "With everything that's going on, we need the industrial facilities here badly. And the longer the location remains a secret, the better."

"I think you see my concerns," Jack said.

Jameson nodded. "I'll do what I can."

"Quietly," Jack warned. "I'm kind of on the IOA's black list at the moment, at least more so than usual. They'd likely have my head if I knew I was out here talking about this to you. I'm going to fill in Admiral Brinkman on my concerns after we dock, so you can feel free to discuss the situation with him. Aside from him, however, you should probably just keep all this to yourself."

"Understood, sir. I'll be discrete, but I'll have her ready to sail if you need her. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that," Jameson said.

"From your lips to God's ears," Jack replied.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

A quiet knock announced the presence of someone at the door. "Come in," Jack said.

The door opened to Jack's temporary quarters to admit General Carter.

"Sam," Jack said warmly. "Finally finished tormenting the eggheads?"

Sam smiled. "I wasn't tormenting them, sir. Just offering some help."

"Like I said, tormenting," Jack said. Jack happily abandoned the stack of paperwork he'd been absorbed in and went to the small cabinet. "Care for a drink?"

"Technically, we're not supposed to," Carter said.

"Come on, Sam, you're a General now. Rank hath its privileges and all."

She dropped her gaze to the floor and smiled. "Actually, I wouldn't mind a good stiff drink right about now."

Jack got out a couple of shotglasses, and poured straight shots of Irish whiskey into each. He watched Sam out of the corner of his eye. Something was bothering her, he could see it in her mannerisms. She was nervous.

He handed her one of the shotglasses, keeping the other for himself. Not really feeling like coming up with some intelligent sounding toast, he went with his old standby. "Bottoms up."

Jack tossed off his drink, savoring the burning flavor. Sam did the same.

Jack looked into Sam's eyes. It seemed to paralyze her. "Sam?" Jack asked. "Are you alright?"  
>"Fine, sir, fine. I just wanted to see how you were doing. You know, just checking up on a friend," she smiled insincerely. "Well, I should probably go," she turned and opened the door to leave.<p>

"Sam," Jack said. She stopped, not turning around. "If something is on your mind, you can talk about it with me."

Sam didn't move.

"It doesn't matter what it is, either. You can tell me anything," Jack said.

"Do you really mean that?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," Jack replied.

She turned and came back into his quarters, and closed the door. She stood straight, squared her shoulders and looked him right in the eye. Jack could've sworn she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Jack. I wanted to say that I'm sorry. For everything."

"What?" Jack asked. "Sorry for what?"

She averted her eyes from his. She gathered up her courage and finally crossed a line she'd drawn for herself years ago. "For not telling you how I feel about you."

Jack's heart jumped from his chest directly into his throat. "Sam..."

"Wait, please let me finish or I may not get it all out," she said. "I never said anything at first because of regulations. Besides, can you imagine the scandal, a Captain and a Colonel?" She paused for a moment. "When my father died, one of the last things he said to me was that I could still have what I wanted." Tears were falling freely from her eyes. "God, how I wish I had listened to him then."

She continued. "Once our assignments changed and the opportunity was there, I was so afraid. So much time had passed. I was afraid you'd moved on from me. I was afraid that you, given how time has passed, now that you've..."

"That I've gotten older," Jack filled in for her.

A small sob escaped from her. "I was afraid of losing you. I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough time with you. Oh God, Jack, I was so wrong and I've wasted much of the time that was left. I was prepared to bury those feelings forever, but when McKay discovered a way to extend lifespan with those damnable nanites of his, it just brought it all back and now with things going badly with the Alliance I'm afraid that I might never have a chance to...to..."

She ground to a halt, unable to speak anymore. She clamped her hand over her mouth as more tears fell.

Jack walked up and embraced her gently and finally said something he'd been dying to say for years. "I love you, Sam. Everything is going to be OK."

Another small sob escaped from her. She embraced him back with almost desperate strength, as if she was afraid he might disappear into thin air if she didn't hang on. "I love you, too Jack. And I have for a long time. I want to be with you for whatever time we may still have before the war starts in earnest."

"Then stay with me tonight," Jack said.

"OK," she said. And she stayed. They sat together at the foot of the bunk, and Jack simply held her. After a while she went to sleep. He gently laid her down on the bunk without waking her. He laid beside her and simply held her as if she were the most precious thing in his world.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The next morning, Jack got up early and made coffee for two. He brought a steaming cup to Sam as she stirred. "Thank you," she said, accepting the cup.

"So," Jack said. "Given how we're being all super honest about everything, I was thinking maybe we ought to get married."

Her eyebrows went up, and a small smile played across her features. "Customarily, the man presents the woman with a ring when he makes that proposal," she said, putting emphasis on the last word.

"Yes," Jack said. His gaze shifted about, as if he were looking for something. "I seem to be fresh out of engagement rings. I have to admit, as plans go, this one wasn't too well thought out. But it's the thought that counts. Or something."

Sam giggled at him, a truly delightful sound to Jack's ears. "Well, I suppose you'll just have to fix that plan of yours and find a ring then when we get back to Earth."

"Absolutely," he said with a big smile. He checked his watch. "Meeting in 30 minutes, I've got get ready," he said, as he walked towards the shower.

"Oh, Jack," she called after him. "The answer is yes."


	20. Chapter 20

_Author's Note: I have felt over the past couple of chapters, our intrepid Captain St. Crowe has been laying on the angst a little thick. There's been good reason for that that I didn't want to simply come out and tell initially, because it would lack impact if I did. This chapter doesn't resolve her issues but brings them out in the open in a manner I felt appropriate._

_I am considering a significant rewrite of this chapter at a later time. It didn't come out quite the way I wanted it to. The scenes feel somewhat contrived, although I am pleased at the characterization of Amanda's family. They themselves came out pretty much the way I envisioned. And yes, her family is a little weird. Weird people are more fun than ordinary people._

**Chapter 20**

The cab dropped Amanda off at the end of the driveway. The small home was a picture of suburbia as it was seen in the South. It even had a nice, white picket fence.

She rubbed the sore spot on the back of her neck. Before going on leave, she had volunteered for and received a nanite treatment. The technology was still somewhat experimental, or so she'd been told. She'd also been told that the treatment would enhance her reaction times while flying. Anything that made her better able to kill the sons of bitches that had taken her friends from her was alright as far as she was concerned.

_Enough. You need to get away from work for a while,_ she scolded herself. She adjusted her uniform and stepped through the fence's gate. With a bit of trepidation, she walked up the steps to the porch and knocked.

The door cracked open.

"Amanda!" the young woman in the doorway greeted. She stepped out onto the porch and embraced Amanda in a fierce hug.

"Valerie," Amanda said, greeting her younger sister. "It's so nice to see you, I didn't know you were home."

Valerie pulled away from the embrace, her face beaming. The younger St. Crowe shared her older sister's pale skin and blue eyes, though she was a bit more on the slender side than Amanda and had red hair. She was dressed in a black tank top and jeans. She had a bit of that goth look about her though it was a lot more understated than most that were into that sort of thing. It wasn't surprising considering her biggest hobby. Amanda was sure it annoyed Mom to no end.

"Spring break at USC," Valerie said.

"I'm surprised you aren't at the beach or on vacation," Amanda said.

Valerie shrugged. "I've got too much work to do for that. Nursing school and all. Besides, Gabriel is in town and wants to get the band together."

"And how is our errant older brother?" Amanda asked.

"He thinks we're going to have an actual record deal soon. He's been after me to practice more. I hope it works out and all, but if it's all the same to you, I'll stick to school for now just in case it doesn't work out."

At that moment a lean, tall man came out the open door on to the porch. He had dark red hair liberally shot through with gray and had a friendly countenance. His eyes were an icy blue color, a color which Amanda had inherited from him.

"Dad," she said, hugging him.

"Sweetheart," he said. "I didn't know exactly what time you were going to be here or I would have had dinner waiting."

Amanda hadn't known exactly when _Daedalus _was going to dock with the shipyard for repairs, so she hadn't been able to give her parents a more exact arrival time. A shame, too. Marcus St. Crowe was an excellent cook. Still, she was home for a week so she knew there'd be ample opportunity.

"Is mom home?" Amanda asked.

"Lucilla's still at work," Marcus said. "She should be finishing up with her classes within an hour, so I suspect she'll be home soon. She hasn't been able to talk about anything but seeing you, you know."

Marcus ushered his daughters inside and followed them. Amanda removed her cap, taking in the sweet cinnamon smell of the home. The carpet was spotless, the hardwood floors swept, and everything had been dusted even down to the old grandfather clock in the foyer. Several immaculate potted plants decorated the living room, clearly her dad's work. _Dad must've got the place clean when he heard I was coming,_ she thought. _Well, more clean than usual anyway, if that was even possible._

Her dad had turned out to be rather domestically skilled. He'd told her that he learned to cook while he was in the Army so he had something of a start on it. She hadn't thought about it much before, but she now suspected that he had simply wanted to do something a bit more peaceful or perhaps constructive after having fought in Desert Storm.

Which is how he had come to run a floral shop of all things.

He really was quite good at it, Amanda thought to herself as she settled herself on the sofa in the living room. The botanical decorations of Marcus and Lucilla's home made the living room look like a little slice of flowering meadow. She knew he generally went with a lush jungle motif in many of the other rooms of the home.

And these were real plants. Oh no, Marcus St. Crowe would not tolerate anything so uncivilized as fake plant decorations. He managed to tend all this and keep the home completely spotless of dirt at the same time.

_It's unnatural,_ she thought to herself with a grin. _I'm sure my instructors in basic training would've loved his attention to minute detail though._

"How's the Air Force life?" Valerie asked.

"Busy," Amanda answered neutrally. "You have no idea how much busy work is involved in it."

Her father smiled. "That sounds rather familiar. It's just part of being an officer, though. Speaking of which..." he motioned towards the rank bars on her uniform. "When did that happen?"

"A couple of months ago, actually," she said. "I would've called and told everyone, but things have been really busy."

And that wasn't exactly a lie as far as it went. She really had been busy.

"Let's see, flying cargo planes, filling out forms, flying more cargo planes. Sounds pretty boring to me," Valerie said.

"Yeah," Amanda agreed. She briefly met her father's eyes. He must've seen something in her expression. Something flashed across his face, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

_Clearly, Dad is not fooled,_ Amanda thought.

"You guys want something drink?" Valerie asked as she went to the kitchen.

"Sure," Amanda said.

Valerie called back a minute later. "We're out of sodas."

Seeing an opportunity, Marcus jumped on it. "Sweetheart, why don't you run down the grocery store and get us some more."

"OK," Valerie said. "Be back in a little bit."

The front door closed as she left, leaving father and daughter in silence.

"I think it's safe to say you aren't flying trash haulers in Afghanistan," Marcus said without preamble.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Dad," she said.

"Amanda, that look in your eyes? I've seen that one before," he said.

Amanda was getting uncomfortable. She didn't really want to lie to her Dad, but orders were orders. Some people may have taken offense to the idea if they ever found out, but she didn't worry about that where her Dad was concerned. He would understand.

No, it was the principle of the thing that was bothering her.

"What look?" she asked. "And where did you see it?"

Her dad smiled thinly. "Every day in the mirror for the past 25 years." He moved to the sofa and sat next to her, placing an arm around her shoulders.

"Dad...I-" she began.

"No," he said, cutting her off. "Don't say another word. I know what this is like. Stick to your cover story, even to your mother."

"Cover story?" she asked innocently. "I don't know what you could mean."

Marcus smiled.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Her initial conversation with her Dad had been more than a little uncomfortable, but the rest of the week had been a lot more pleasant. She had spent about half the week with Gabriel and Valerie. She had spent a lot of that time hauling around equipment for their band to various local venues. It was hard work, but she didn't mind, and her two siblings and their bandmates really did put on a good hard rock show.

It had definitely been nice to just get out and not think about things. She figured it wasn't too healthy to be in such denial, but she needed it at the moment. She needed the breathing room.

"Get ready," her mother whispered. "We're up next."

Amanda scowled. She had managed to avoid getting roped into singing with Gabriel's band, but her mother had been far more insistent. The two of them had done more than a few duets in church on Sunday mornings when she was in high school. Lucilla clearly wanted an encore for this Sunday morning.

Lucilla smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her clothes. She was a tall woman, standing nearly six feet. She had ghostly pale skin, hazel eyes, and dark hair. She had an almost ethereal look to her, and to any onlooker it was obvious they were mother and daughter. She wore a simple, but elegant floor-length black dress that contrasted well with her pale complexion. Amanda was dressed similarly, except in blue.

"You almost ready?" Lucilla asked.

"Yes," Amanda replied patiently.

"Good. Be on your best. I invited your CO to the services this morning."

Amanda almost choked. "You WHAT?"

"I sent him an email inviting him here. Your father has been wanting to meet your CO for a while now, but he was afraid he would be meddling too much in your business if he asked you to invite him."

_Oh God,_ she thought. She really didn't want to see Mitchell or anyone else from the squadron, not until she had to. She'd tried to forget her troubles throughout the week and had succeeded partially, but now she could feel the weight of her troubles pressing down on her again.

"I can't believe you did this!" Amanda hissed.

"Oh, stop," her mother scolded.

In truth, Amanda had casually invited Mitchell to visit her at her family's home. She hadn't thought about that every since...

She shied away from it, unable to even face it.

"We're up," her mother said. The two women walked out onto the church's sound stage.

It didn't take her long to find Colonel Mitchell. His blue on white dress uniform stood out easily in the crowd.

_Well, no pressure,_ she thought.

The music started up. They sang "Amazing Grace". Amanda sang it beautifully and with conviction.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"You were amazing," her mother said after the service was over.

"Thanks," Amanda replied. "I was pretty nervous." She frowned. "Especially with my CO and all being here," she added pointedly.

The two of them mingled in the church's fellowship hall. She had seen Colonel Mitchell come in earlier, but she'd lost track of him in the crowd. She spent nearly a half an hour talking with people she had gone to high school with and hadn't seen in years.

"You know," Lucilla said, "that guy, Jeff, you went to prom with? He's here today, he might want to talk with you."

"Mom," Amanda said, "seriously. I can handle my own love life."

Lucilla sighed. "Your brother is 32 years old and shows no signs of settling down, your sister is too busy with school, and you're too busy gallivanting all over the world. I'm never going to get any grandchildren at this rate. Please tell me you're seeing someone, or at least that there's someone you'd like to be seeing."

Amanda found Colonel Mitchell. Her eyes went to him momentarily before answering. "No, there's no one."

Lucilla followed Amanda's momentary glance. "Hmm. I see."

Amanda looked sharply back to her mother. "What?"

Lucilla gave her daughter a severe look. "I'm your mother. These things don't escape my notice."

"I have no idea what you're going on about," Amanda said.

Lucilla smiled and placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "I know your superiors would frown on it. I can't tell you what to do. He's a bit old for you, and that does worry me, but if he makes you happy..."

"Mom!" Amanda protested.

"OK, I'll leave it alone," Lucilla said gently. "Given the rules about that sort of thing, it must be complicated for you."

_You have no idea,_ Amanda thought.

"Captain," Mitchell finally made his way over to them.

Amanda made introductions. "Mother, this my commanding officer Colonel Cameron Mitchell. Colonel, my mother, Lucilla St. Crowe."

"A pleasure ma'am, and thank your for the invitation. It was a beautiful service." Mitchell said as he took her hand. He turned to Amanda. "I have to say, you mislead me."

"Sir?" she asked.

"You told me that you used to a sing _a little,_" he said. "I've sat through a lot of church services and I've never heard anything so beautiful."

Amanda, despite herself, blushed a bit.

Mitchell turned towards Lucilla. "I'm sorry ma'am, I didn't mean to suggest you weren't excellent as well-"

Lucilla interrupted him. "I know you meant no such thing. I am a reasonably good vocalist, but I never learned to sing opera the way my daughter did. She was always much better than me, if a bit more cavalier about keeping in practice. Sometimes, I think she missed her calling, but she is very happy where she is and I am very proud of her."

"We both are," another voice said. Her father joined them. Marcus held his hand out. "Marcus St. Crowe."

"Cameron Mitchell," Mitchell said shaking his hand.

Marcus nodded. "He's not half bad for being Air Force."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "You'll have to forgive my father. The Army did a number on his ability to think."

Mitchell chuckled. "Pleasure to meet you, sir."

Mitchell and her dad began talking animatedly, reminiscing about their experiences. Or at least the ones they could talk about. It was kind of amusing watching them obviously dance around anything classified.

She wasn't able to appreciate the humor of the situation, though. Mitchell's presence was acutely uncomfortable for her, for a whole trainload of reasons. At the first polite opportunity, she excused herself from the conversation and went out into the far less crowded hallways of the church.

Now more or less alone, she started fuming. She couldn't believe her mother had so brazenly meddled in her life. It was maddening and-

"There you are," Mitchell said.

"Sir," she turned.

"Captain, are you avoiding me?"

"Of course not," she replied.

"You've been a little distant lately. I know it's about what happened with Barnes, Carmichael, and Oakley," Mitchell said. "But it seems to be getting worse. I'm concerned, and so is your father."

She ground her teeth together and didn't meet his eyes.

"What happened to Carmichael and Oakley was lousy, but neither of them were your fault. As for Major Barnes, like I said, you made the right choice according to regulations. It shows a lot of character that you're upset about it, but you can't let it ruin you. You did the right thing. I even put a commendation in your personnel record for it."

This was more than she could tolerate. She laughed a pained laugh, not bothering to hold any tears back. She knew it was crazy and likely to land her in trouble, but she just didn't care about holding up the masquerade of her 'good character' any longer. "Dear God, man, you don't even know."

Mitchell looked askance at her. "Know what?"

She turned towards Mitchell and the anger and pain in her eyes disturbed him. The words ground out of her mouth like broken glass. "Do you really think I saved you because it was what my duty demanded of me?"

"But-" Mitchell began.

"No!" she spat. "I saved you because I couldn't bring myself to make any other choice. I let myself come to...care too much about you." She averted her eyes from his, hoping he wouldn't see the shame in them.

"Barnes isn't dead because I did my duty," she said. "He's dead because I had an immature infatuation with you. He's dead because of the inappropriate feelings of a stupid young girl who was in over her head and he. Deserved. BETTER!" she half shouted.

She turned away from Mitchell, hugging herself against the self loathing. "I suppose you will have to put me on report now."

Mitchell sighed and it was a very tired, weary sound. "No. Even if this were a normal situation, I wouldn't be inclined to, but especially not now. The truth is I simply can't spare anyone."

"I see," she whispered.

Mitchell walked up behind her. He nearly placed his hand on her bare shoulder, but he stopped himself short, grimacing. She hadn't noticed. "I know this is bad. I promise, we will get all this worked out after the fighting ends. But I need you now more than ever." Mitchell wasn't sure himself if he was referring to his own feelings or the military's needs, and he decided now wasn't a good time to explore that question.

Mitchell spoke again. "Try to relax for the rest of the day. Spend time with your family while you can. You have a wonderful family, and they're worried about you. Lean on them if you have to. They're here for you." He was tempted to say he was also here for her, but given what she'd just said, he wasn't sure it was a good idea.

She clearly wasn't in a mood to talk anymore, so Mitchell took his leave. "I will see you onboard, Amanda."

It was the first time Mitchell had ever addressed her by her given name. Neither of them seemed to notice it.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

He sat silently, staring down at the sheet in front of him. It seemed an innocuous thing. A simple intelligence report he'd written up earlier. He had written many such reports recently.

None of them had been nearly as critical as this one. Once he forwarded it on, it would set into motion a series of events that he would not be able to stop. It could literally change everything. The information he was about to provide could cause his people's fortunes to turn for the better. Or it could cause their downfall. Or it could generate almost any result between those two extremes.

He'd thought he would've become used to this sort of thing after doing it for so long, but moments like these still left him quietly frightened. It never ceased to amaze him how events turned on the most innocuous of things, such as a small stack of papers.

He had idly considered not sharing the information at all, but that had never really been anything other than a thought exercise. He had made his choice months ago, and he knew he would see it to it's conclusion. He still decided to take a moment just to ponder the whole thing, to enjoy the calm before the storm.

He shook out of his reverie and chided himself for delaying. There was no point in doing so. He turned to the Tau'ri made computer system on his desk and entered a quick combination from memory. His call was answered almost immediately.

The display illuminated to show Teal'c in his robes of office. He bowed respectfully. "Sa'vel," Teal'c greeted.

"How many of the Councilors are present?" Sa'vel asked.

"I believe they are all here at this time," Teal'c replied. "Is something wrong?"

"No, but a critically important matter for the Council's attention has just come up. I need to call a meeting."

"For what purpose?" Teal'c asked.

"I just received some information from my mole in the Alliance. They're planning a major offensive against both us and the Tau'ri." He held a hand against Teal'c's question. "I don't yet know where or when, other than it will be soon but my mole has also learned how we can obtain that information."

"Teal'c," Sa'vel said, worried, "this is serious. It could cost us the war if we aren't prepared for it. We need to convene the Council immediately."

"Indeed," Teal'c said gravely. "I will make the call."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The new hit Homeworld Command like a thunderbolt.

"Yes, Mr. President," O'Neill said into the phone receiver. "We're working on a plan now."

"Are you sure you don't know when and where the attack is coming?" the President asked.

"Not yet, sir," O'Neill said. "But we will soon."

"General, I don't have to tell you how important it is that we maintain secrecy. We cannot afford an open assault on Earth."

O'Neill restrained himself from sighing in frustration. If the program had been made public, that wouldn't even be a concern and the government could get the entire country behind any preparation efforts. That was annoying enough, but what really bothered him was the way the President seemed more concerned about concealment than defending his own country.

"I understand, sir. I will give you an update as soon as we have something else."

"Good luck, General," the President said, hanging up the phone.

O'Neill quickly punched in another call. "Carter," he heard Sam say.

"Sam," O'Neill said. "I forwarded the new intel report to the _Hammond._ Have you been able to read it yet?"

"Parts of it, sir," she said.

"Good. I am not expecting any trouble just yet, but let's keep our forces in the solar system on higher alert."

"I'll pass the word," Sam said. "You have a plan yet?"

"In general terms, yes," O'Neill said. "Basically, we'll drop in on one of their worlds where they have the intel we need, blast the defenses to rubble, land some Marines, take what we need, and leave. Available forces are spread pretty thin right now, but I think can scare up enough muscle to do it."

"What did you have in mind?"

"_Daedalus_ will be out of the shipyard tomorrow," O'Neill said. "She's got a cloaking device and will be well suited for this mission. I'd also like to borrow one of your destroyer squadrons."

"You got it," Sam said.

"Let's just hope it works," O'Neill replied.

"So, Jack, have you been to your doctor yet?" Sam asked.

"Oh, Sam," O'Neill whined. "I'm too busy. I don't need them poking around, and I'm still a little weirded out by this whole nanites-running-all-through-my-body thing." O'Neill held up placating hand before she could interrupt. She was so worried about him and worried about having a long life together with him that she was pushing for him to get the lifespan extending nanites like she had as soon as possible. It was endearing; he knew she was doing it because she loved him, but now really wasn't a good time. "I'll get it done, Sam, I promise. It's not like I'm gonna die in a week or anything. I'm not _that _old."

Satisfied, at least for now, she answered, "Alright Jack. I'll leave you alone about it."

"Now, about that destroyer squadron..." Jack said.

"Right. I can give you DesRon 2, the _Memphis, _the _Chicago, _the _Montpelier, _and the _Jacksonville_."

"_Montpelier?"_ Jack asked, aghast. "Who in the hell names a ship _Montpelier_?"

"The Navy, apparently," Sam said.

"Did the ship do something to them to make them that mad at it?"

Sam chuckled. "I could always swap in a rowboat for _Montpelier_ if you'd like."

Jack paused, as if in thought. "What's the name of the rowboat?"

Sam laughed openly. "You're impossible."

"I know," Jack said. "I have to run, Sam. Take care. I love you."

"Love you too, Jack."


	22. Chapter 22

_Author's Note: Getting near the conclusion, I expect to have this wrapped up within three or four chapters. I may delay posting the last few one at a time and drop them all at once, but I haven't decided on that one way or another just yet._

**Chapter 22**

The day she'd reported back aboard _Daedalus_ had been more than a little bit uncomfortable. She had been avoiding Colonel Mitchell as much as she possibly could. Which wasn't all the time unfortunately. Her duties made complete avoidance impossible.

The squadron had so far only received one replacement pilot. He was a 2nd Lieutenant just out of the academy. His name was Derek Judd, and he was painfully young and inexperienced. She was getting along with him well enough, but it was hard to be sociable when all she could think was that the bunk he was occupying rightfully belonged to Carmichael.

Amanda had hoped people weren't noticing her behavior, but the truth was that it was obvious. Judd had even asked her if she was mad at Colonel Mitchell over something. She wasn't. It wasn't anger she was showing, it was shame. Apparently the two could look a lot alike. She had promptly smacked Judd's question down and let him in no uncertain terms he needed to mind his own damned business.

She pushed all those thoughts out of her mind as she readied her waiting fighter. Shame wasn't the only thing consuming her these days. There was also the rage. Her friends had been killed by a band of murdering bastards. Her own guilt in not preventing those deaths only fueled her hate further. The rage was fiery hot and sweet. She embraced it, and it promised her the opportunity to bathe in the blood of her enemies.

"First section, clear for takeoff," her radio crackled.

She had been reassigned to Mitchell's section as his wingman. She hadn't necessarily cared for that, but it made sense. With Barnes gone, she was the next most experienced in the squadron. Judd and one of the pilots from Third Section had joined her in Mitchell's section.

The grav catapult grabbed her fighter and sent it hurtling into the vacuum. She followed Mitchell as the squadron formed up, riding herd on the handful of friendly ships she was charged with protecting.

The small flotilla consisted of a single battlecruiser, _Daedalus_, four destroyers, and a medium transport. The transport was hauling a battalion of US Marines. The mission was pretty simple: the fleet would smash the orbital defenses, the Marines would land, secure their objective, and then pull out.

That objective was apparently intel that gave detailed information on the Lucian Alliance's dispositions. It wasn't exactly the mission she would've liked, but it would do for now. Once the military was in possession of that critical intel, they'd have what they needed to deliver a boot to the Alliance's ass properly, a prospect she was looking forward to with an almost lustful, sexual anticipation.

For her part, the squadron was tasked with protecting the transport and its landing shuttles. Homeworld Command was hoping that transporters could be used to land the Marines, but experience had shown that the Alliance had emplaced transport jammers almost everywhere, so no one really expected that to happen. Once the shuttles had landed, her squadron was to provide close air support.

She checked her weapons loadout and frowned. There were likely to be Death Gliders defending the planet, and she didn't care for the mixed anti-fighter and air-to-ground weapons package she was carrying. Instead of the normal 12 anti-fighter missiles, she was carrying only six anti-fighter missiles and four 500 lb laser guided bombs. The laser guided bombs were fairly old technology; she'd been trained on the use of GPS guided munitions, but since the Alliance world they were attacking had no GPS satellite system, they had to use weapons that didn't rely on it. Amanda didn't like the way that the bombs made her fighter maneuver a bit sluggishly or hampered its acceleration. She felt it would've been better to go loaded for anti-fighter work, destroy any fighter opposition, and then return to _Daedalus _to re-arm for CAS operations but Colonel Caldwell felt that that might take too long.

Under other circumstances, the Marines might've simply relied on bombardment from shipboard heavy weapons rather than fighters, but the objective was situated in a populated area. Homeworld Command was not willing to use weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations.

She just hoped the Death Gliders wouldn't be too thick this time. They had the destroyers and their massive point defense armaments to fall back on if they needed it. She didn't like it though.

The beautiful blue and white of a living world grew steadily larger as the flotilla approached. It was at that moment her sensors screamed a warning to her.

Mitchell's voice came across the radio. "Bandits rising from the surface, count thirty of them. Form up on the destroyers."

_Daedalus's_ fighters formed up on on the destroyer squadron, under the cover of their prodigious point defense weapons. The Alliance pilots were clearly learning, however. They boosted out of atmosphere but made no move to engage the F-302s.

"Looks like they're going to wait until the shuttles start landing Marines," Judd said into the radio.

"I'd say you're right, Lieutenant," Mitchell replied.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Damn," Caldwell swore.

"They're not going for it," Caldwell's second-in-command, Major Marks said.

"I guess we'll send the destroyers into atmosphere with the fighters to protect the landing shuttles," Caldwell sighed.

It wasn't the sending the destroyers in atmosphere would in any way be directly dangerous for the destroyers, it just constrained their actions in certain ways. While they had the capability of going to hyperdrive inside a planetary atmosphere, doing so would cause a lot of collateral damage, which Caldwell was under orders to avoid. It also cut off line of sight beyond the horizon, limiting how much time they would have to engage an approaching enemy. That could be mitigated by keeping _Daedalus_ in orbit to keep an eye on things, but that had the disadvantage of splitting up his forces.

He could've brought _Daedalus_ into the atmosphere with the destroyers, keeping his entire flotilla together. While they'd have bigger line of sight issues in that case, at least he would have his entire flotilla's firepower concentrated in one place to compensate. That held a certain appeal. He wasn't entirely comfortable with it, however. He didn't know for sure that the Alliance didn't have concealed anti-ship weapons on the planet. His nightmare case scenario would be to have his fleet at low altitude slugging it out with ground to space weapons emplacements only to have reinforcements drop out of hyper above him in orbit.

No, much as he was uneasy about splitting his forces, he knew he would have to send the destroyers into atmosphere and keep _Daedalus_ in orbit.

"Major Marks, pass word to the destroyers, they are to escort the landing shuttles down to the planet," Caldwell said. "Engage the cloaking device. If any Alliance ships show up to try to crash this party, I'd like to give them a suprise."

"Yes sir," Marks answered.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Amanda rode the turbulence as her squadron descended like meteors through the planet's atmosphere. The four destroyers and the transport's entire compliment of landing shuttles streaked along in their wake. They screamed across the night sky, leaving massive sonic booms behind them. They shot across the terminator from night into day, and she saw their target.

It was a fairly small city, not much larger than her hometown of Sumter, South Carolina. It was much more densely packed, however. There was a tiny, heavily urbanized area right in the center of town, surrounded by a surprisingly small amount of urban sprawl.

The landing shuttles made their final approach and began landing. Fortunately, the Alliance appeared to have no heavy anti-ship weaponry, or at least if they did, they weren't using it. Only small arms fire and bursts from the occasional crew-served heavy weapons rose up to meet the shuttles. The fire was inaccurate and unlikely to actually harm the heavily armored shuttles. Still, if the enemy was going to be kind enough to reveal his position, no reason to not take advantage of him.

The landing shuttles were quite well armed themselves, enough to provide CAS to ground troops alongside the F-302s. They lacked any guided munitions, but they each had four heavy railguns, each of which could take out even heavily armored vehicles with sustained fire.

The landing shuttles spat a hail of railgun rounds, scything down defending Alliance troops with ease. With opposition in the LZ silenced, the rest of the shuttles landed and began unloading troops.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Lieutenant Commander Mike Atchison's shuttle was in the second wave. It bothered him a little; he was SEAL, and SEALs were supposed to be in first under normal circumstances, but this was a Marine operation by and large.

His SEAL team was there to protect the mission specialists, Daniel and Vala. The two of them had a way with computer systems in general. If the data they were looking for was protected by good computer security, they would try to break past that security.

The shuttle touched down, and he checked his weapons one last time. He normally favored the M-4 carbine for its good balance of performance, lightweight, and ease of handling, but most of the fighting on this mission would be in urban terrain or indoors. He had, instead, drawn a shotgun from the armory. It was a pretty basic pump action weapon; not exactly cutting edge, but he had trained extensively with it and was comfortable with it. That was more important to him than having the latest gear. He checked to ensure his sidearm, a custom 1911, was secure in his drop-leg holster.

The cargo door dropped. "Let's go!" Mike shouted. His team exited the shuttle first, with Daniel and Vala following.

The objective was a building in the town, just over 1000 yards away from where they stood. That was a smattering of staff weapons blasts from the building, some of them landing uncomfortably close.

"Down!" Mike shouted. He and his team hit the deck, making themselves smaller targets. His shotgun and his pistol didn't even begin to have the range to effectively return fire, so he didn't bother drawing either of them.

There was no need. The Marine sniper a few feet to his left was laying prone behind a .50 caliber rifle. The sniper's spotter called out, "Tango, fourth floor window, third window from the left, 1000 yards."

"Got him," the sniper said. An incredible, obnoxiously loud roar issued from the rifle. The compression wave from it thumped Mike in the chest. The .50 caliber projectile hit the Alliance soldier like a ton of bricks, dropping him almost instantly.

The cacophony of return fire from the Marines grew louder as more of them dismounted the shuttles and got their weapons into action. Besides the snipers, a handful of M-2 heavy machine guns and several lighter machine guns quickly suppressed Alliance fire.

A balding Marine with a major's golden oak leaf rank insignia jogged up to Mike. "Commander," the Marine greeted him. "The landing force has suppressed enemy opposition. I'm sending your team in now before they get their act together and start offering real resistance. Let my Marines take point."

"Aye, sir," Mike said. He waved to his team, and they took off at a brisk job towards their objective. Mike had a few bad moments as they crossed a rather large amount of open ground, but the Major had been good to his word. No Alliance troops fired on his team or the Marines as they approached the first multi-story building of the pocket sized city.

"Watch your corners," Mike said. Urban fighting had a way of turning nasty in a hurry. There was a limitless number of places enemy troops could wait in ambush.

There weren't really any civilians around at the moment, a fact for which Mike was grateful. He didn't need any 'collateral damage' to haunt him. It also meant he could be more liberal with the application of close air support if it was needed.

The team advanced down one side of the main street, hugging the sides of the buildings, just behind their Marine escorts.

"So far, so good," Daniel said.

Mike turned to nod agreement towards Daniel, and it saved his life. A blazing hot orange spear from a staff weapon flew past his head, only inches away.

"DOWN!" Mike yelled.

A group of Alliance soldiers had burst out the front door of a small building just across the street from where his team was. There was no cover to speak of, so his men just hit the deck as they were instructed. Mike brought the pump shotgun to bear and stroked the trigger. The shotgun roared and hammered his shoulder smartly. The buckshot load hit his target like a hammer, dropping the enemy soldier in his tracks. The sound of his shotgun was joined by a cacophony of fire from his comrades.

The attackers were taken down, at least the ones he could see. Unfortunately, the building was chock full of badguys, and a half of staff weapon fire lanced down into the Marines. Several were hit almost immediately, burns incapacitating them.

The Marines held their ground and began to return fire. The building was fairly sturdy however, and it became apparent that the Alliance had put in improvised barricades.

Mike's radio crackled to life. "Designated marksman, start taking out the ones behind the barricades," the Marine Major said.

Mike saw several marksman come forward. They carried old semi-automatic M-14 rifles retrofitted with scopes. The hefty cracking sound of the M-14s filled his ears as they opened fire, silencing Alliance positions one by one.

With the enemy driven back for the moment, the team pressed forward, only to run into a strong point. The strong point was a series of of what looked like armored pillboxes, arranged to guard the entrance to the building they were moving towards. Small arms fire issued forth from them in prodigious quantities.

Mike heard the radio come to life again. "We need air support. Lasing target now."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Amanda's sensor display blinked, showing the location of an active targeting laser.

"Target acquired," she said into the radio tonelessly. She rolled her fighter over and dove lower, leveling out at five thousand feet. She couldn't really see the enemy or allied troops on the ground, but she didn't need to know their location precisely. The ground team had painted the target they wanted hit with a laser. Once she dropped her bombs, they would home in on their targets with lethal accuracy.

She hit the release and dropped two of her 500 pound bombs, just before she overflew the target. Both bombs homed in straight and true, and turned two of the fortified pillboxes into smoking craters.

She growled in hateful glee when she saw the blasts where her bombs had hit, reveling in her enemies' deaths. She wasn't satisfied, though. It had been too impersonal, too cold. She hadn't gotten to watch them die, and she craved that.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Fire in the hole!" Mike shouted.

The breaching charge made a thunderous crash and reduced the building secured door to metal splinters. Mike switched on the high power flashlight attached to the weapon, shouldered it, and made entry through the ruined door.

The dust in the air was thick, nearly causing him choke on it. His weapon light illuminated a room that appeared to have been a reception area. Besides the powerful flashlight's beam, there were no lights working and the building didn't have much in the way of windows. Most of the room was in near total darkness. No enemy troops accosted his team as they pushed forward.

It worried him. There really should've been more resistance. His team proceeded down a long hallway, alert to trouble, but found none. After a few minutes, they came to another secure doorway, one that lead into building's subterranean floors.

"Breaching charge," Mike said.

Another thundering boom, this one made even harsher by being indoors, and the door was blasted down.

Mike lead his team down six flights of stairs before they came to the bottom. This door wasn't secured and opened.

It was a sight Mike would never forget for the rest of his days. The door opened and he stepped into what he initially had though was Hell's charnel house.

There were humans inside what appeared to be upright stasis units. Row after row. They had been...altered.

"Oh God," Daniel whispered.

"I don't think God had anything to do with this," Mike said grimly. He walked up to one of the stasis units. The man inside had all manner of monitoring devices hooked up to him.

"Are they unconscious?" Mike asked.

"I don't know," Daniel said.

"Alright, we don't have time to gawk," Mike said. He motioned towards a terminal. "Computer terminal is there. Gathering the intel on the Alliance's next planned attack is your priority but once you get that done, see if you can figure out what in hell's name is going on here."

Daniel and Vala went immediately to work on the terminal. Mike did his best not to look at the apparently unconscious humans.

"Take up positions," Mike said.

Mike heard a soft noise from behind one of the stasis units. He held up his hand, indicating he needed silence.

He motioned for two of his men to follow, and sent the other the opposite direction. They all killed their flashlights. Mike and his men moved like ghosts, searching.

"_Contact,_" one of his men whispered. It was so quiet he barely heard it. The SEAL motioned towards his right. Mike saw someone vaguely, distorted because he was viewing the person through the glass of one of the stasis units.

A surprised scream issued forth from behind Mike. He turned to see an alien with pale green skin and malevolent yellow eyes. It had grabbed the man directly behind him and broken his neck.

"WRAITH!" Mike yelled. He whipped the shotgun around and fired at point blank range. The Wraith's eyes widened in surprise, and it sunk to the floor, apparently dead.

The bluish bolts of Wraith stunners flew at the team from nearly every direction. Mike brought the shotgun to bear, and cut down three more Wraith with it. He palmed a handful of shotgun shells and started stuffing them in the shotgun's tube magazine absent-mindedly, even as he shouted orders to his men.

"Fall back to Daniel and Vala! We'll hold our ground there."

Mike's team retreated in orderly fashion, laying down fire on their attackers and exacting a heavy toll. Mike quickly saw the toll might not be enough; they just kept coming. He kept up his rhythm, pounding out buckshot into his enemy.

After a furious exchange of weapons fire, the Wraith started pulling back.

"Maybe we drove them off," one of his men said.

"Maybe," Mike said. "I think they're regrouping. Brace yourselves. Daniel, please tell me you're almost done."

"Almost," Daniel said. "I think I found out what they're doing here. It's a cloning facility. I'd say it's derived from Wraith tech given what I'm seeing here."

"What the hell would the Alliance want with that?" Mike asked.

Daniel swallowed his gorge against his rebelling stomach. "The Alliance and the Wraith have been working together, we knew that, and we know the Wraith have a few forces in our galaxy. I guess the Alliance considers it polite to provide a nutritious meal to its guests."

Mike had read the reports about how the Wraith fed, and it made for some high-quality nightmare fuel, but this was a whole new level of disturbing. "It's a farm," Mike said.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Mike heard Vala stammer. She quickly turned and Mike could hear her retching violently as she vomited up her breakfast. Mike agreed with her sentiment.

"Can we do something for them?" Mike asked.

"I don't see how," Daniel said. "It would take a full medical facility to revive them. It would be time consuming."

"Are they even aware?" Mike asked.

"They're unconscious, but they're not brain dead. They might be clones, but they're still people."

Mike gritted his teeth. "What about shutting down the facility?"

"That would kill them," Daniel said.

"Which is a damn sight better than what the Wraith have in mind," Mike pointed out.

Daniel looked conflicted about it.

"I'll do it," Mike said. "I understand how you feel, but I've seen the footage Atlantis sent back. We'd be doing them a favor."

Daniel nodded. "It's the throw switch here on the lower left."

Mike nodded. He walked over and threw the switch, powering down the pods. He tried not to look at them.

"Finish up," Mike said as he heard heavy footsteps approaching. "We've about outstayed our welcome."

Mike started pumping fire out of his shotgun as a large squad of Wraith rounded a corner. The rest of his team poured their own fire into them, but these Wraith appeared to have fed recently. They weren't going down easily.

"Aim for the head!" Mike ordered. Successful headshots by his team were dropping more of them, but they still closed and Mike was getting short on shotgun shells. He pushed his shotgun to the side, allowing it to hang by its sling, and he drew his 1911 pistol. Mike was a high ranked competitor with the 1911, and he fired so fast that he emptied the .45 caliber pistol's 8 round magazine in less than 2 seconds.

Four Wraith died under the onslaught of his pistol marksmanship. He slammed a fresh magazine home and holstered the weapon. He snatched up his shotgun again and stuffed his last five shells in it in less than a second. The shotgun rocked against his shoulder five more times, putting down even more Wraith. He went back to his pistol.

"Daniel, Vala," Mike shouted warningly. "Any time now."

"I've got it!" Vala said.

"Time to be somewhere else then," Mike said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Caldwell's head snapped up from the report he was reading. The warbling warning tone issuing forth from CIC told him trouble was on its way.

"Colonel," Lieutenant Rose said. "Detecting multiple hyperspace footprints. CIC calls it four _Ha'tak_ class motherships and four Wraith Heavy Cruisers.

"Time to intercept?"

"They came out of hyper a ways out," Rose said. "They should make weapons range in 12 minutes."

"Status of the ground team?" Caldwell asked.

"The SEAL team has recovered the intel and transmitted it to us. They're starting their evac now. They should in the air in 15 minutes," Rose answered. "They've launched Death Gliders and Darts. They're bearing down on the planet."

Caldwell groaned. "Alert our F-302 pilots and the destroyers. They're to escort the landing shuttles back to their transport. Helmsman, set an intercept course for the enemy fleet. Let's see if we can delay them."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Amanda's squadron formed up on the landing shuttles as they lifted off. And none too soon.

"Colonel, we've got a shitload of badguys crawling down our throats," Amanda said. "I make it 140 Gliders and 120 Darts."

"There's no way we can engage them on our own with sixteen F-302s," Mitchell said. "Stay tucked in close to the destroyers. If they want a fight, let them come get one within the destroyers' point defense envelope.

Unfortunately, they were spoiling for a fight bad enough that they did just that. Just as they made orbit, the point defense guns of the destroyers erupted and filled the sky with walls of projectiles. The enemy fighters burned like kindling in a fire, dying in prodigious numbers. The Death Gliders attempted to evade the defensive fire to little effect. The Wraith Darts ignored it, and did their best to make suicide runs.

"Bandits on a suicide run, 283 degrees by 47 degrees," Mitchel said. "Get into them!"

Amanda hauled her fighter around to face the enemy. She locked on and loosed all of her remaining missiles, destroying five enemy fighters. The Darts rocketed past them without slowing down, but the Death Gliders attempted to engage them.

"Ignore the Gliders," Mitchell ordered. "Chase down the Darts before they can ram their targets."

The F-302s turned and pursued the Darts, doing their best to keep from getting shot down by Gliders. Many of the pursuing Gliders fell to friendly defensive fire, but not enough. There were just too many. Two red markers on her sensor screen heralded the deaths of two of her squadron mates.

She tried to ignore the fury as it rose in her. She lined up her railguns on the nearest Dart and fired. The projectiles punched cleanly through the alien fighter, breaking it apart.

A pair of blazing orange energy bolts flashed past her, nearly hitting her fighter. It was a near thing for her.

It wasn't a near thing for Mitchell. The two blasts ripped away his fighter's starboard side engine. His fighter spun wildly, out of control.

"Colonel Mitchell!" she shouted into her radio. A lump of freezing lead formed in her gut. _Please God, don't let this happen._ "Colonel Mitchell!"

"Captain, take the squadron back to _Daedalus_," she heard Mitchell said. "Get our people back to-"

A Dart flew by Mitchell's crippled fighter. It extended an energy beam as it passed, snatching him up into the Wraith's transporter device mid-sentence.

Amanda's world went silent. _They took him,_ she thought. _They took him._ The truth of it twisted her in gut, like a knife.

She became vaguely aware of someone yelling in her ear, but it was a distant thing and she didn't care about it.

_They took him,_ she thought again.

"What are your orders!" she heard a voice shout.

She returned to herself, feeling numb inside. The emotional wound was so savage she wasn't even feeling it yet, but like a traumatic injury that didn't hurt until later, she knew she'd fall apart after she got back to _Daedalus. _If she got back.

"What are your orders!" she heard the voice shout again.

She realized belatedly it Lieutenant Judd. "Come again, lieutenant?"

"What are your orders ma'am?" he asked.

"Orders?" she asked, confused.

"You're in command," Judd said.

She blinked. She hadn't even thought about being next highest in rank to Colonel Mitchell. She hadn't even realized it, probably because Colonel Mitchell had spoken of getting a replacement XO, and he'd never asked her to assume any of the deceased XO's duties.

"Continue to engage the Darts. Cover the landing shuttles," she said.

What was left of the 563rd followed her back into the battle. She lost three more fighters in the ensuing battle, but all the landing shuttles made it.

She landed her fighter in _Daedalus's_ fighter bay just before she escaped into hyperspace. Amanda popped open her canopy, and descended to the hangar deck.

Lieutenant Judd intercepted her before she left the fighter bay. "Captain should we report for-"

She ignored him and stalked off to her bunk. She entered her bunk and closed the door behind her.

Sure that she was alone, she threw her pilot's helmet with all the strength she could muster into the wall. A sound of primal rage and anguish escaped her lips.

She sat on her bed and wept bitterly. But not for very long. After a short time, she composed herself, and then put out a shipwide announcement.

"563rd TFS is to report to the briefing immediately for debriefing," she said. She didn't want to do it, but it was now her responsibility, and she knew there was no way out of it.

It was not the way she had wanted to gain her first command.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Sir," the aide said, coming into Jack's office. "We have a report from _Daedalus_."

Jack looked up at the aide, his eyes tired and bloodshot. "Tell me it's good news."

"We have the intel," the aide said.

"Show me."

The aide slide a sheaf of papers across the desk to Jack. Jack opened the folder, and glanced at the pages, his eyes growing steadily brighter.

"We have them," Jack said. "We have them. We have the sons of bitches by the balls! Thank you for bringing this to me. You are dismissed."

The aide left. After he was gone, Jack picked up his phone and dialed a number. "Get me General Maynard and Admiral Rawlins."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

It was the largest gathering of Homeworld Command officers to date. Most task force and ship captains attended by video conference, though a fair number of senior officers were present in person.

General O'Neill rose from the chair in the NMCC's conference room and called for attention. Once everyone was paying attention, he began.

"This will be our last meeting before commencing Operation Reversal. Admiral Rawlins, if you would," Jack said.

Admiral Sam Rawlins was tall, dark as night, and possessed a razor sharp mind. The operation had largely been his creation.

"The Alliance has finally made a mistake," Rawlins began. "Three days ago, intelligence was obtained by a special operations team that has revealed the Alliance's next moves. These worlds will be attacked." Rawlins input a few commands on the console in front of him, highlighting several worlds on a star map.

"P3X-332, P3X-888, P2K-145, P4V-434, the Gamma Site, and Chulak have been targeted," Rawlins said. "We expect the Alliance to commit to a very heavy attack against all six of these systems. It should be noted that they have targeted our most productive naquadah mines. Their intention clear: cripple our war fighting capacity before conducting a campaign to defeat us."

"After much discussion, we have determined our order of battle," Rawlins continued. "Task Force 1 will be under the command of Colonel Caldwell of the _Daedalus,_ and will be tasked with defending P3X-332. Task Force 2..."

Jack tuned most of it out. He had helped write the ops plan, so he knew the specifics by heart. In essence, Earth's defenders knew when and where the enemy was going to attack, so Jack had hatched a plan to trap them. Earth's forces would lie in wait, and ambush the enemy as they approached. Hopefully, they would inflict severe enough losses on the Alliance to discourage them from further attacks.

Rawlins finished the presentation. "Any questions? Colonel Caldwell?"

Caldwell spoke up through his video communications link. "Any word on Wraith forces?"

Rawlins shook his head. "None were shown as being part of this Alliance operation, but we haven't forgotten about them. We've assigned sufficient strength to give us some leeway if Wraith forces make an appearance."

Another officer called for attention. "Admiral Brinkman?"

"We are certain they haven't found the Theta Site?" Brinkman asked.

"It would seem that way," Rawlins said. "If they had, there's no doubt they'd be attacking it in force."

"Won't the Alliance change their plan if they know we've compromised their security?" Brinkman asked.

"The raiding force that acquired the intel covered their tracks on the ground, and made a point of taking out various military installations. Our space forces took out a pair of small shipyards and an asteroid mining operation. Combined with the heavy communications jamming we used, we are confident that we have concealed the fact that we compromised their plans," Rawlins explained.

"Any idea why they're attacking Chulak? I mean, why bring the Jaffa into this?"

"We don't know. But we have detailed a small number of ships to Chulak to assist the Jaffa fleet," Rawlins said. They'd only spared two destroyers for Chulak; the Jaffa had pulled in the majority of their fleet which was more than enough to deal with what the Alliance was sending their way. It was largely a show of solidarity between the Jaffa and Earth. Relations had been somewhat strained lately, and it was worthwhile to smooth things over.

"What about Earth?" General Carter asked.

"We're assigning all of our remaining forces to Earth. We don't expect any trouble, but all the same, it's best to sure. Earth's task force will also act as a strategic reserve in the case it's needed," Rawlins said.

"Further questions?" Rawlins asked. "No? You have your orders, ladies and gentlemen. God speed, and good hunting."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Seventeen minutes," Major Marks said.

Colonel Caldwell squirmed in his chair. He hated the waiting. P3X-332 was a desolate rathole of a world, and the only thing that recommended it was its rich naquadah deposits. The Alliance thought to take that resource away from Earth, but Task Force 1 would have something to say about that.

_If they'd just hurry up and get here,_ Caldwell fumed.

"I hate waiting," Caldwell muttered.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Eight minutes," the warrior said.

Teal'c had joined Sa'vel on the Jaffa fleet's flagship. The Council had been very unhappy at the idea of having two of its members on a ship shortly to be involved in battle, but both men had ignored their protests. Leading safely from the rear might be imposed upon the Tau'ri's older warriors by their politicians, but not Jaffa. While Teal'c was happy to do away with some of the more foolish traditions, especially those forced upon them by their false gods, he was quite happy to stick to this one.

"Your talents have stood us in good stead, brother," Teal'c said.

"I am honored to hear you say that, Teal'c," Sa'vel said. "Perhaps when this is over, we can travel to the Tau'ri. I have heard they have a certain delicacy in some of their markets. I think it is called...ice cream?"

Teal'c nodded. "Indeed. It is a decadent dish, one even the false gods would've envied."

"You are close to them, Teal'c. The Tau'ri. At first I thought them soft, but there is more to them than it seems."

"There is," Teal'c said. "A great many of them are soft, but a warrior sleeps in their hearts. When left alone, they slumber and go about their ordinary lives, but when roused to action they are a furious, unstoppable beast."

"Let us hope so," Sa'vel said. "The beast's prowess will be tested soon enough."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"All hands are at their battle stations, Captain. Weapons are armed, and we've received positioning orders from the flagship. We are ready," Commander McDevitt said.

"Thank you, Commander," Captain Connelly said. "Move us into position. Time remaining?"

"One minute...mark," McDevitt said.

The timer started counting down. In less than a minute, the decisive battle of this half-assed war would be fought, the Alliance would get taught a lesson about crossing His Majesty's Royal Navy, and Connelly could finally get some damn shore leave.

The counter fell steadily.

5...

Captain Connelly said forward in the edge of his chair.

4...

The fleet waited, ready to pounce.

3...

McDevitt wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead.

2...

Nearly there.

1...

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The clock had struck zero five minutes ago. And no one had showed up.

"Where are they?" Teal'c said.

Sa'vel shrugged. "Perhaps they were delayed? Complex operations like this often encounter logistical issues."

Teal'c growled. "The Alliance has proven itself very good at meeting operational deadlines and strategic coordination. This is unlike them."

"Peace. They will show themselves soon enough."

"Time?" Teal'c asked the ship's pilot.

"Six minutes, twenty-three seconds past time."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The communicator beeped on Admiral Brinkman's command chair inside the _North Carolina's_ CIC. He accepted the incoming connection. "Captain Jameson," Brinkman greeted.

"None of our task forces have reported enemy contact," Jameson reported.

Brinkman sighed. "None of them?"  
>"No sir."<p>

"Any word from Homeworld Command?"

"Their orders are to stand fast, repel any Alliance attacks, and await further instructions."

Brinkman sighed heavily. He looked around and saw the mounting tension on his officers in the ship's CIC. Though they weren't part of the coming battle, Brinkman had been keeping track of the deployed fleets and keeping in contact with them. Just a precaution.

Brinkman looked back down at his comm panel at Jameson's frowning expression. "I don't like this."

"Aye, sir," Jameson said. "Something's wrong."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Airman 1st Class Samuel O'Malley, or "Sammy" to his friends, had a boring job. Sure, he had been granted high level security clearance to work with Homeworld Command which was pretty cool, but even such rare, classified assignments as that had boring postings and, for his sins, he'd been assigned to one.

Sensor Watch in the Solar System was dreadful duty. All he did was review any anomalous contacts the automated sensor platforms picked up and classify them. Given how much debris tended to float around in something the size of a star system, there was a surprisingly large number of anomalous objects found on a daily basis, but by and large they were harmless. One thing was for sure, if Homeworld Command ever went public, the astronomy community was going to trip all over themselves to get hold of the data he'd collected. The sensor platforms, derived from Asgard tech, had cataloged more objects in the solar system in the past four years than the entire astronomy community on Earth had in the past thousand years.

_Maybe I'll get a commendation or something,_ O'Malley thought.

An annoying tone sounded from his control panel. "Great, more space junk to identify," he murmured.

The object on his readout was rather large, larger than normal for random interplanetary bodies. "That's strange," he said.

"What is?" 1st Lieutenant Jefferson, his commanding officer said.

"Look at that," O'Malley said. "It's nearly 2500 meters in length. And it just appeared on my scope!"

"What was its position when the sensors first picked it up?" Jefferson asked.

"It hasn't moved," O'Malley said.

Jefferson frowned. "The sensors must be out of adjustment. It can't be just sitting there motionless."

"Wait!" O'Malley said. "There's another one."

Jefferson examined the readout and, sure enough, there was another anomaly, exactly the same size as the first one.

Jefferson sighed. "We'll have to reset the sensor platforms, they're showing us ghost images of-"

"Hyper space footprint!" another Airman called out from across the room. "Multiple hyperspace footprints!"

Jefferson jerked his head towards the other Airman. "What? There are no scheduled arrivals today."

The Airman looked up in fear towards Jefferson. "I don't think these are scheduled."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"She's a hell of a ship, Sam," Jack said.

"Do I hear a bit of wistful desire there, Jack?" Sam asked.

She did, though Jack didn't want to admit it. He knew his job was important, and that he was too old to be out on the tip of the spear anymore, but he did miss it.

"Nah," he said dismissively. "It's so much more fun to wield power from afar, with all the awesome exclusive perks that go with it. Like a big office, better pay, having to deal with politicians all the time..." he ground to a halt. "You know what, nevermind."

She chuckled as they entered the bridge.

"Like I said, hell of a ship. Named for a damned good man," Jack said, somewhat somberly.

"I miss him too," Sam said. General Hammond had been a great leader, a good officer, and as fine a man as she'd ever known. Well, except for Jack of course. She smiled as she looked down at the ring on her finger. It hadn't been extraordinarily expensive or flashy as such things go. But it had communicated Jack's feelings for her in the surprisingly elegant way he was sometime capable of, and it made her happy.

Sam had been worried that the ring would've been distracting to her crew at first, but no one had batted an eyelash. It was as if they'd known all along how Sam and Jack had felt about each other, an idea that had given her furiously to think.

"Have we still not heard from our other fleets?" Sam asked her communications officer.

"No, ma'am," the comm officer replied.

Sam frowned. "I know that operations can be off on their timing, but the battle should've started by now," she mused.

Jack nodded. "I'm starting to get a bad feeling."

"General Carter!" her ops officer said. "We're getting hyperspace footprints! Multiple hyperspace footprints!"

Sam frowned. "Where?"

"Looks like they're coming in near Mars."

"Align one of the sensor platforms and give me a visual," Sam ordered. The holo map dissolved into a visual display, the take from one of the myriad sensor platforms scattered throughout the solar system.

Hyperspace windows were disgorging ships. Lots of ships.

"Oh my God," she heard someone say.

There was no end to them. The windows continued to deposit _Ha'taks_ and Wraith ships into Martian orbit. Their numbers multiplied, growing quickly, and a ball of icy fear formed in her stomach.

"Give me a count," Sam said quietly.

"CIC makes it two hundred fifty three ships," her ops officer said. "One hundred seventy-three _Hataks_, seventy-six Wraith cruisers, and four Hive Ships."

Jack was transfixed by the sight. "They fooled us," he said quietly. "The intel must've been bait. They wanted us spread out and Earth poorly defended. And we fell for it. I fell for it," he finished bitterly.

Sam knew he must've been hurting at the moment from the guilt. It wasn't entirely his fault, of course. The Alliance had fooled the entire intelligence gathering establishment, not just one Jack O'Neill, but she knew he wouldn't see it that way. But she didn't have time to deal with that right then.

Sam's blood ran cold as she studied the sensor readout. Over 200 capital ships. "_Hive ships?_" she asked, incredulous. "Communications, raise Homeworld Command."

Admiral Rawlins's face appeared on her chair's miniature communications unit. "Admiral, we have to recall the fleet to Earth," Sam said.

Rawlins shook his head. "The President has ordered me no to."

"Excuse me?" Jack asked, incredulous.

"Admiral?," Sam asked.

"We're getting a surrender demand," Rawlins said. "They're threatening to use nano-weapons if we attempt to call in reinforcements. They've got long range subspace communications jammed and I'm pretty certain they'd detect the Stargate dialing out. They've threatened to use the weapon if we try to circumvent their jamming with the Stargate."

"Admiral," Sam said, "we have twelve battlcruisers and twelve destroyers. We don't have a snowball's chance in hell of standing this force off."

"General we-" Rawlins cut himself off, looking to the side. "I think you're going to want to see this. The surrender demand is repeating."

Rawlins's face was replaced by the face of an Alliance officer. "I am Jorgan, of the Lucian Alliance. The governments of the Tau'ri are ordered to surrender. If you comply, we will not destroy your fleet. Our allies here are a bit hungry from their long trip. Surrender peacefully and we will only take the crippled and infirm. We will take responsibility for governing your world. Resist us, and we will destroy you. Those who survive will be governed by them." No one had any doubt that 'them' was the Wraith.

Rawlins's face cut back in. "We've detected the energy signature of weaponized nanites on one of the hive ships. I don't have to tell you what would happen if it gets used on Earth."

"Admiral we can't-" Carter began.

Rawlins cut her off again. "Standby, General. I'm getting a call from the President."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Mr. President," Admiral Rawlins said, "we have to recall the fleet."

The President looked quizically at Rawlins's image on the monitor. "If we do, they use their nano-weapon. Besides, I thought you said we couldn't, that long range communications were jammed."

"At the moment, that's true Mr. President," Rawlins said. "We could use the Stargate, however, to contact one of our offworld outposts to spread the word."

"Could they detect that?" the President asked.

"Almost certainly," Rawlins replied.

"And then they use their nano-weapon," the President said.

"Mr. President, it's my opinion that they intend to use it regardless. It makes sense now what that weapon was designed for. It will destroy anything of artificial construction on this planet, leaving the population intact for the Wraith to cull," Rawlins said.

"Admiral," the President said, "we can't provoke them into using such a weapon. We also can't allow the Stargate program to become public knowledge. Therefore, I'm ordering our fleet to stand down."

Rawlins almost choked. "Sir?"

"You heard me, Admiral," the President said. "We need to keep them talking until you can devise a way through their jamming, preferably a way that doesn't alert them to the fact that we've done it."

"Mr. President, my duty requires me to remind you of how treacherous the Alliance is, and how readily they break their word," Rawlins said. "Any temporary truce you negotiate with them isn't going to be worth the paper it's written on."

"I'm aware of their past actions, Admiral, but this situation is one that will require the light touch of a diplomat. With any luck, once we break through their jamming and we bring in reinforcements behind them, they will quit the field. It would be only be logical," the President said.

Rawlins hesitated for a moment. "Understood, Mr. President."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Screw that!" Jack shouted at Rawlins.

"Those are our orders, General," Rawlins said frostily. "We will carry them out."

"They're stupid orders," Jack said. "We have no way of knowing if we can cut through their jamming."

"We've got our best people on it, Jack," Rawlins said.

"Admiral," Sam said, "this is crazy."

"Yeah, I know," Rawlins said.

"Fine," Sam said. "Lower shields and disarm weapons."

Her ops officer looked at her, obviously frightened, but he carried out her order. The fleet disarmed itself before the advancing enemy fleet. They passed Sam's ships by without firing, and took up orbit around Earth.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The enemy fleet held orbit of Earth for 15 minutes before they even tried communicating again.

"President Clark," Jorgan said, "I see you have chosen to be reasonable."

"I believe reasonable men can generally come to some kind of accomodation," the President said over the comm link.

"I agree. We have grievances to discuss, so reasonable, cool heads with be required," Jorgan replied.

"What do you wish to discuss?" the President said.

"You surrender, of course. You did see my original message, did you not?" Jorgan said. "Your people have been a thorn in our side for too long, and we are going to put an end to that here and now. You can surrender and we will restrain the worst predations of our allies, or you can fight, and we shall let them do their worst."

"Surely we can reach some kind of more equitable-"

Jorgan cut the comm link. "Fire," he ordered.

A blazing orange bolt of energy leapt forth from his flagship, and lanced down through the atmosphere. It landed in the middle of downtown Boston. The explosion was the equivalent of a 200 megaton nuclear explosion.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"We are seeing something amazing here," the reporter's harried voice stated. "There appears to have been an attack on Boston..."

The camera waved around lazily as it's operator repositioned it, to look towards Boston. Or where it had once been. A flaming mushroom cloud miles tall dominated the seen, and fire was consuming the city.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the frightened reporter said. "There appears to have been a massive event of some sort...the city is destroyed. We have received word from the government that this was a meteor impact. We will keep you updated as we learn more."

"Turn it off," President Clark said coldly.

"Mr. President, I strongly recommend you evacuate the White House," his aide said.

"No," President Clark said. "Evacuate the Joint Chiefs and the rest of Congress. With the Vice President and the Speaker of the House already at secure locations, I intened to stay right here."

"Mr. President-"

"I said no!" President Clark snapped. "Now, get that Alliance bastard back on the communicator."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"They'll fight now, you know," Torias said.

Jorgan shrugged. "At least we got them to disarm themselves by surrendering their fleet. I never expected this to be bloodless."

Torias nodded.

"Incoming signal from the planet," Jorgan's aide said.

"Put it on."

"You son of a bitch!" the President said. "That was unnecessary!"

"You will surrender unconditionally," Jorgan said. "You have ten minutes. If you fail to do so, I will destroy one city per minute until you do. Attempt to call in reinforcements, and we will destroy ten cities for each attempt."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"We have to do something, Sam," Jack said.

"I know. I think we can get our shields up before they can do to much damage to us, but we're really only to get one good punch in," Sam said. "It's a question of where we want to land that punch."

Jack sighed. Sam's ops officer had located the source of the subspace jamming and the ship with the nano-weapon.

Each one was located on a separate hive ship. She had to choose which her force would attack.

She was tempted to take out the subspace jammer so that Earth could call for reinforcements, but doing so would undoubtedly push the Alliance into using their nano-weapon. That weapon could literally wipe out all infrastructure and military forces in minutes if it wasn't stopped. There were some crude, ground based energy weapons designed to counter the nanites (derived from Dr. McKay's designs), but the damage would be catastrophic before they could eradicate all the attacking nanites.

As bad as a conventional orbital bombardment would be, it would not be as bad as a nano-weapon attack. She knew she had to take it out. Once Earth's fleets realized Earth was out of contact, they would return to see what was going on anyway.

Jack saw her train of thought, and he nodded. They both clasped hands, and it was all Sam could do to not openly weep. They had a chance to take out the hive ship bearing the nano-weapon, but none of them would survive it.

_I'd so wanted to spend my life with you Jack,_ Sam fretted to herself.

"Sam," he said gently. "I'm glad I'm here with you."

No one even took notice of them holding hands. Sam spoke clearly. "On my mark, bring all weapons and shields online. Primary target is Hotel 4. Don't stop until it's dead."

Sam waited a moment. "Mark."

Sam's task force came to life, but the Alliance ships detailed to guard them had been waiting for something of the sort. They opened fire immediately as power surged in the Earth fleet's ships. Three destroyers were blown apart before their shields even came up; most of the rest of the ships of the fleet took varying degrees of hull damage.

Before anymore serious damage could be done, however, the shields on the remaining ships snapped into place. They charged forward, Asgard plasma beams flashing energetic death. The four Wraith cruisers in front of her ships stood no chance, as they were cut to ribbons in the blink of an eye.

The hive ship bearing the nano-weapons saw their enemies approaching, and turned to face them. Forty Wraith cruisers opened fire, and one of Sam's battlecruisers and three more destroyers were immediately blasted to scrap metal. A massive salvo impacted her ship's shields, which promptly buckled.

"Beam 3 is destroyed," her XO shouted. "Engine power down by thirty percent!"  
>"Hold your course," Sam said. She dug the nails of her left hand into her command chair, and clamped down on Jack's hand with her right. There was nothing left she could do, except hang on and wait for death.<p>

Her fleet burned like moths in a candle flame. Two more battlecruisers were destroyed. A third joined them. Her destroyers were all gone now, the small ships simply unable to weather the hurricane of fire bearing down on them.

Her ships thundered defiance back at their enemies, destroying a dozen Wraith cruisers. Upgraded though they had been, the Wraith ships were no match for the powerful Asgard energy weapons her ships mounted.

There were too many, however. Seven of her battlecruisers survived to engagement range of the hive ship. As one, they spat fire from their plasma beams, shattering armor and coring deep into the hive ship's hull. But this hive had been upgraded with the crude Wraith ZPMs, and firepower that would've utterly annihilated an ordinary hive ship several times over, merely inflicted moderate damage on this one.

The next titanic salvo came in, and all of Sam's ships, except for hers and the _Iliad_, were destroyed. She held on to her command chair as best she could, as the fire overwhelmed her ship's inertial dampeners. Another salvo slammed home against her ship's hull, and the world bucked madly. Jack was torn from her grasp, and she landed somewhere near the back of the CIC. She hurt all over, and she nearly blacked out.

With an effort of will, Sam scrambled to her feet. It hurt to breathe, and that meant broken ribs. She rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead, and it came away bloody.

"Report," she said.

Her ops officer was dead, his neck turned at an unnatural angle, so her helmsman spoke up. "We're dead in space, General. Main power is offline, engines are disabled, and all weapon mounts have been destroyed or cut off from their control runs."

Sam plopped back down in her chair, and looked at her sensor display. The _Iliad_ had come out a bit better than her ship had, but she appeared to only have one plasma beam weapon left in action.

It wasn't going to be enough.

And then, _Iliad_ altered course slightly, and Sam bit her tongue, but she refused to look away.

_Iliad_ slammed into the hive ship broadside, with every bit of speed she had left. Just as she impacted, her engineer overloaded the ship's reactors, adding their fury to the impact. The explosion was blinding at this distance, but after it subsided, bot the _Iliad _and the hive ship were destroyed.

Sam stood up, a bit wobbly. "Let's start dealing with casualties and restoring life support before we all suffocate," she said. "Any enemies nearby?"

Her helmsman replied. "Two cruisers, but they're moving off. I guess they figure they can come back and finish us off later," he said bitterly.

Sam looked around a bit. "Where's Jack?" No one answered. She scrambled further back towards the CIC and found him. His back was sitting at an odd angle.

"Oh, dear God," Sam whispered. His back was broken and was bleeding from a head injury.

About that time, a team of medics came in and began triaging patients. Several got to Jack and examined him, and there were a lot of grim looks.

"We'll have to get him into surgery now. He's paralyzed for sure," one of them said. Sam teared up at that, and it was all she could do to remain on her feet. "We might be able to use medical nanites to save him. He's pretty far gone, but I'd give it 50/50. And if he lives, the nanites can repair his spine."

Sam nodded, and looked away. She couldn't bear to seem him like that.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"They destroyed the nanite carrier," Torias said.

Jorgan ground his teeth together in rage. It was just like the infernal Tau'ri. Even in defeat they were a pain in the ass.

"Shall I have our fleet commence a general bombardment?" Torias asked.

"No," Jorgan said. "Begin landing troops. Let's let our allies have their way with them."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday morning the day the war came.

Brandon Carpenter had gotten out of church services an hour ago, and he had already changed into his work clothes. He immediately went into has backyard to water his garden. He had always enjoyed growing and canning his own vegetables and it was beautiful weather to get some work done.

He was about to turn on his sprinklers when he felt the ground shake.

"What the-" he began. A low rumble sounded from the horizon, and he looked up.

It was...he didn't know what it was. It was flying low and relatively slow. It appeared to be settling over downtown Baltimore. It was dark purpleish in color, sleekly shaped, and vaguely aquatic looking.

"What the hell?" he said aloud.

Lauren, his wife emerged from their home. "Honey, was that an earthquake just—oh, God."

The two stared transfixed as the Wraith cruiser disgorged a swarm of Darts. Several flew towards their surburban neighborhood at high speed.

"Let's go back inside," Brandon said. The two scrambled back in their back door. Brandon went to the living room and peaked out as the strange craft rocketed overhead. Some kind of bluish beam issued forth from them, and he saw his neighbors disappear before his eyes.

_What is happening?_ he thought.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The President had his face covered by his hands. _How could it have come to this?_ he thought.

The TV blared. "Ladies and gentlemen," a reporter said, "this is extraordinary. Unknown forces are attacking, and I'm receiving word that similar attacks are being experienced all across the country." The camera shifted, centering on the Wraith ship hovering above St. Louis, Missouri.

"There have been sightings of strange beings in other cities that came from these ships we're seeing," the reporter continued. "We appear to be facing some sort of invasion."

"Mr. President, we have to leave!" the aide said.

"Where is the Vice President?"

"I'm sorry Mr. President, but Vice President Lopez was at Fort Hood when-"

"I understand," the President said. "What about the Speaker of the House?"

"Speaker Rosen is secure at Area 51."

"How many dead?" the President asked.

"Sir, we need to evacuate you!"

"How many!" the President snapped.

"Well, sir, Boston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles have been hit from orbit. Not counting those taken by the Wraith, we think it's around 18 million."

The President's teeth ground together. "Leave," he said. "Get out while you can."

"But sir-"  
>"LEAVE!"<p>

The aid scampered out. The President used his communications unit to contact Admiral Rawlins.

"Admiral Rawlins."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"It's going to be up to you shortly."

"Sir, you should evac-"

The President cut him off.

Some time later, he didn't know exactly how long, a massive orange bolt struck directly in the middle of downtown Washington, DC.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"DC is gone, sir."

Admiral Rawlins sighed. "Dammit. Where's Speaker Rosen?"

"The Speaker of the House is at Area 51."

"Are any of the Justices with him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Have him sworn as President and get him on the comm as soon as it's done."

"Incoming communication for you, Admiral."

Rawlins sighed. "Put it on."

It was Jorgan. "I am giving you one last chance to surrender. You have ten minutes to com-"

"Shut up," Rawlins snarled, cutting the transmission off.

It was barely two minutes before Rawlins received another incoming call. Speaker, well President now, Rosen was an older man of the kindly looking sort, the kind of guy that dogs and children love on sight. "Mr. President," Rawlins greeted.

"That's going to take some getting used to," Rosen said. "What is the situation?"

"Our long range communications are being jammed, and landings are happening all over the planet. Wraith are culling unopposed. About 2/3 of our terrestrial military forces have been destroyed. We have the option of using the Stargate to contact one of our offworld outposts and issue a general recall order to our fleet," Rawlins said.

"Why has this not been done?" Rosen asked.

"I was ordered not to by President Clark. The activation of the Stargate would be detected, and we think there's a good chance that they might start indiscriminately bombarding Earth in retaliation," Rawlins said. "The only other option we have is to surrender. If our fleet realizes something is amiss, they should eventually return to investigate."

"Should?" Rosen asked.

Rawlins grimaced. "We should've heard something from them by now. I think the Alliance has done more than just jam our transmissions, I think they're intercepting and responding to requests from our ships for status reports. Our fleet commanders will eventually figure out that something is wrong, but by then..."

"I see," Rosen said. "It is bitter to consider it, but how many lives might be saved by surrendering, at least temporarily?"

"It's...hard to say," Rawlins admitted, though he clearly wasn't happy to say such a thing. "Normally I'd say the chances were good, but the Wraith seem to have brought an rather large number of transport devices. They clearly mean to kidnap as much of the population as possible for their...feeding."

"I have seen the Wraith feeding process," Rosen said slowly. "It is...indescribable."

"What are your orders, Mr. President? Should we stand down, or continue to fight?"

Rosen sighed. "I was born in New York, but as a child I emigrated with my father to Germany. I was there when the war started, when the round ups started. I remember the camps, and the repeated horrors they inflicted on us. I was ten years old." Rosen's expression went hard. "These Wraith are at least as bad as that, the things they do. I swore I would never submit to such injustice again, and I will for damned sure not stand by let these animals visit such horror on our own people, without lifting a hand against them."

Rosen bored his eyes into Admiral Rawlins's. "Admiral, we fight. Recall the fleet, and may God have mercy on us all."

"Understood, Mr. President," Rawlins said. The link cut off, and Rawlins immediately contacted Stargate Command. General Landry answered.

"General," Rawlins said without preamble. "Fire up the gate and get our ships recalled."

"Yes, sir."

It wasn't the 30 seconds later that Landry called back.

"We've got trouble, Admiral. We can't dial out."

"What? Why?" Rawlins asked.

"They have a Stargate on one of their ships already dialed out," Landry said. "We've seen this sort of thing before."

"Dammit," Rawlins spat. "Do you know which ship?"

"Yes sir, we've identified it, it's one of their damned hive ships. Not that it will do us much good, though. Our fleet is lost.," Landry explained. "We've got some F/A-141 Bearcats at Peterson Air Force Base, they could reach the hive ship and have the firepower to take it down, but they'd never survive to get close enough. Besides, Alliance troops have seized the base."

Rawlins grunted. The F/A-141 Bearcat was a specialized strikefighter designed to take out capital ships. It mounted a very sophisticated electronic warfare package which allowed it to survive against enemy point defense fire much better than other fighters. It also mounted four decoys and three naquadah enhanced nuclear weapons. The weapons were housed in three launchers, very similar to the NRGs used on frigates and destroyers, albeit smaller. They were well suited to swarming attacks of larger warships, but they were marginal in combat against other fighters. They would require F-302s to escort them past enemy fighters, and there were simply not enough F-302s available.

"Dammit. Are the Bearcats still intact? How about the pilots?"

"The Bearcats are intact, the pilots are being held in one of the hangars."

"What have we got in the way of terrestrial air power?" Rawlins asked.

"Two tactical fighter wings are currently at Buckley Air Force Base, and the Alliance hasn't hit it yet. F-16s and F-15s. Even a handful of F-22s."

"Get your SG teams prepped," Rawlins said. "Take back Peterson and get those Bearcats in the air. I have an idea."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

General Landry stared down at the display. It showed a complete map of Colorado Springs. Peterson AFB was colored an angry red, indicating the presence of Alliance troops. However, it was just a general marker; they really had very little information on how many Alliance troops held the air base or how they were equipped.

A series of green markers indicated his combined SG teams moving on the Air Base. At the head of the force was Major Daniels's heavy armor, with Colonel Lorne following with his Bradleys and Humvees.

Landry noted another friendly unit to the north. "What's that?" he asked.

Walter Harriman looked down at the map. "Colonel Lorne was able to pick up some help along the way. That's the 157th Field Artillery Regiment, Colorado National Guard."

Landry nodded. "They're going to need all the help they can get."

"Sir," Harriman said, "our sensors are detecting a Wraith cruiser...it's orbit has it passing directly over us within the next forty minutes. This cruiser has been pretty actively bombarding various military and civilian targets."

Landry grimaced. "Damn. Warm up the evacuation transporters and prepare an auto dial program for the gate. Hopefully, even if we do have to evacuate, the facility will survive long enough to get off our distress call."

"Understood, sir," Harriman said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Major Daniels activated her radio. "Colonel Lorne, our scouts just got back. They're estimating three thousand Alliance troops and around a hundred heavy weapons, all of them dug in."

"Christ," Lorne replied. "Is there any good news?"

"Just a little," Daniels replied. "Almost all of the Alliance troops are dug in away from the hangar buildings. I'd hazard a guess that they want to try to secure the F/A-141s for study later. Positioning a ways out from the hangars makes it harder for us to destroy the hangars and deny them their prize."

Normally, taking out the hangars to protect military technology would be easy; a couple of fighter aircraft with guided munitions would do the trick, but with space superiority and swarms of Darts and Gliders buzzing around, getting in an airstrike would be nearly impossible. Daniels was amazed that her troops hadn't already been bombarded from orbit, since she knew they must be broadcasting plenty of electronic emissions that the enemy could detect.

"You think we can use the MLRS on them safely?" Lorne asked.

"Yes sir," Daniels replied. "Though we only get to do that once, as I'm certain the artillery units will get hit from orbit after they fire."

Lorne sighed. "Its better than nothing, I suppose."

"One more thing, sir," Daniels said. "Some of my other scouts have picked up an unknown number of Alliance troops coming in from the northeast. We don't know what their strength is yet."

"We're short on time then," Lorne said. "You got any ideas on how to do this?"

"I was thinking we give them the artillery barrage and I'll move in with my armor right on the barrage's heels. Maybe even start moving just before it ends." The MLRS rockets were murderously effective on infantry and her heavy armor was unlikely to take any significant damage from them rockets even if one of them did hit. "After that, we hold the line until we get the fighters in the air. And then we run like hell."

"Sounds like a plan, Major. Hold fast and let my vehicles catch up. We will roll in behind your tanks when the attack starts," Lorne said.

"Sir, your lighter vehicles will be dead meat for Alliance heavy weapons. We don't even know for sure how well this new trinium-ceramic alloy armor plating on my tanks will work. It's dangerous," Daniels cautioned.

"This one's for all the money, Major," Lorne said. "If we don't succeed here, it won't much matter if me and my men die now or later when the Wraith have their way with us. If that's to be our end, I'd rather die in battle."

"Understood sir," Daniels said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Major Gutierrez," Major Daniels said into her radio.

"Go ahead," Gutierrez answered.

"Execute Break In."

Major Gutierrez gave the order, and his regiment of M270 MLRS vehicles salvoed their deadly munitions. The din was deafening as hundreds of laser guided rockets lifted off into the sky.

His job done, his men abandoned their vehicles. Major Daniels had indicated that the attacking aliens (and wasn't that a fine thing to wake up to on a Sunday morning) had fire-finder radar from hell. His launchers were dead meat, and neither he nor Daniels had felt that anything was to be gained by his men staying and dying when those launchers were destroyed.

Reluctantly, the men of the 157th Field Artillery Regiment followed orders, and bugged out.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Daniel saw the rockets start to hit before she heard them. Dozens, hundreds of them streaked in, each one outrunning its own sound.

Some were regular high explosive, but many were specialized anti-personnel rounds. They would detonate between five and six feet above the ground, about head height on most humans and throw out what amounted to razor wire in every direction.

The result...impressive. Bloody as hell, but impressive. In fact, there weren't that many Alliance troops left...

"Go!" Daniels shouted into her radio. Her tank lurched as her driver put the Abrams into gear.

"Target, ten o'clock, infantry fleeing on foot," her gunner said.

"Load canister."

"Canister loaded."

"Fire."

The tungsten balls from the canister round obliterated the fleeing troops. Daniels's tanks waded easily through the remaining, disorganized opposition. Few of the heavy staff cannons survived, though a few managed to return fire. The new trinium-ceramic armor plating shrugged those few shots aside with ease.

Daniels's tanks came to a stop short of the base's hangars.

"Runway area is secured," Daniels said into her radio.

"Understood. Now for the fun part," Lorne replied.

Lorne's Bradleys moved in, but they held their fire. They needed the fighters inside those hangars intact. The Alliance troops guarding each hangar held their fire; they were afraid if they opened fire, that the US vehicles would opt to destroy the hangars and their contents. Of course, the Alliance didn't know how important those fighters were to Admiral Rawlins's plan and Lorne prayed they didn't figure it out.

Lorne's men dismounted their vehicles, and moved cautiously to their target hangars. Lorne himself moved up to one of the hangars, with SG1 in tow. He turned towards Ronon. "Flashbang."

Ronon nodded, and pulled the pin on one of his grenades, and tossed it inside the hangar. It made a metallic clanking sound as it bounced along the concrete floor. When it exploded, it created a pulse of white light and a defeaning noise, stunning everyone inside.

Teyla was through the door first, P-90 spitting fire in three round bursts. Lorne and Ronon followed on her heels, adding their own fire to the din.

It was over in under ten seconds.

"Major Daniels," Lorne said, "we've secured our hangar. How are we doing in the other hangars?"

"All hangars have been secured," Daniels replied. "We've secured the pilots as well; they're in Hangar 6."

"I'm on my way," Lorne said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The recently freed pilots were donning their flight suits even as Lorne spoke to them. "There is a hive ship in orbit with an active Stargate blocking our own gate. The plan is simple. Take off, destroy the hive ship. Once that's done, try to return to a friendly base if you can."

"Where is this hive ship?" one of the pilots asked.

"Low Earth orbit. We will feed exact coordinates once you're in the air. Remember, do not begin your attack run until you're right under him, and make damn sure you keep your ECM configured properly. If you don't, you're sure to get chewed to pieces before you even get close to him," Lorne explained. "Any other questions? No? Then good hunting. Get your birds fueled and armed. We will hold the base until you get airborned."

"Colonel," Major Daniels said over the radio. "Those reinforcements are getting close. My advance vehicles have already engaged them. And there is a _lot_ of them. We need to expedite this plan now."

"Understood, Major. Hold tight, I'll get the Bradleys up to you." Lorne turned to the pilots. "Let's move, we're short on time!"

Lorne dashed back to his command vehicle. "Go!" he shouted at the driver.

The Bradleys took off towards Daniels's position. Lorne had decided to leave his Humvees and men on foot at the airbase; while they might've been of some help, they represented his line of defense that would hold back the Alliance troops, at least until the fighters got airborne.

Lorne's Bradley rolled to a stop next to an Abrams. Daniels had her cuppola open. Lorne opened the Bradley's cuppola so he could talk to her. "Nice of you to join the fun, Colonel," Daniels said. Her voice sounded awfully grim. "Take a look at the feed from scout's thermals."

Lorne ducked back down into his Bradley, configured his screen, and groaned. There were thousands of them. Division strength, most likely in Lorne's opinion.

"Alright," he sighed, climbing back up. "Let's fall back a bit and find a good spot to hold them. We need to buy as much time as possible."

"We aren't going to stop them," Daniels said flatly. "There's too many. We can only delay them and hope it's enough. And I know a good way to delay them."

"Out of the question, Major," Lorne said.

"It's the only way. It will engender confusion and slow them down."

"Fine," Lorne spat. "Then my vehicles will accompany you."

"That's not a good idea, sir," Daniels replied. "They've got a lot of heavy weapons that will open a Bradley like a tin can. And besides, without the Bradleys all the infantry on foot won't be able to escape."

Lorne just about pulled rank and slapped Daniels down, but damn, she was right. The smart thing would be to order her to take her tanks ahead and delay the enemy, but he just couldn't do it. She had given so much to the Stargate program since she had been assigned to the SGC, and it just wasn't fair to ask anymore.

"Major, I can't order you to-"

"Then I volunteer. We all do," Daniels said.

"Major-" Lorne started.

"It's alright, Colonel. I have a letter and a few things in my home in Dallas. Make sure my brother gets them."

"I will," Lorne said. "I will. Go with God, Major."

"Courage conquers, sir," she said, reciting her old unit's motto.

Lorne watched from inside his vehicle. Every Abrams tank assigned to the SGC charged right into the teeth of that titanic juggernaut. Canister shot scythed down legions of Alliance soldiers. High explosive destroyed heavy staff cannons. Staff weapon blasts flashed _everywhere_, their impacts but flea bites to the tanks' new armor, but with them came the occasional heavy bolt from a heavy staff cannon. One of the Abrams tanks absorbed a dozen shots before it exploded. Another followed it before that Abrams had even finished brewing up. Daniels's men didn't flinch, however, and they thundered their defiance at their enemies. Machine gun fire from the tanks clawed into the enemy after each main gun shot, at least until the gunner reloaded.

"It worked," Lorne said aloud. The Alliance force ground to a halt, concentrating everything on the beasts attacking them.

Major Daniels's tank exploded last. Lorne got on his radio. "Please tell me the F/A-141s got in the air?"

"They did," Ronon replied.

"Alright. We're heading back your way. Time to bug out."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Austin flight, hold your course," Lieutenant Colonel Thomas DiFalco said. His scope showed a rather unpleasant quantity of Darts heading right for his F/A-141s. His fighters were sophisticated weapons of war, but they lacked the agility and weaponry to fight Darts.

"20 miles and closing," DiFalco's wingman said.

"When we get to 5 miles, let them have it," DiFalco ordered.

"At least there's some cloud cover above us," his wingman said on the radio. "Hopefully it will be enough to keep them fooled even if they're looking at us with Mark One Eyeball."

"From your lips to God's ears," DiFalco said.

The Darts were coming down from orbit, and the range dropped precipitously, thought it seemed to take forever to DiFalco.

His range indicator finally reached 5 miles.

"Austin flight, drop ECM! Buick flight, engage!"

The F/A-141 Bearcat mounted the most sophisticated ECM suite in the entire US arsenal. Normally it would be used to confuse enemy scanners so that enemy point defense fire would not be as accurate, giving them enough time to make their attack runs against an enemy capital ship.

It was never envisioned that those same systems would be used to hide something else, but they worked well enough for that.

The approaching Darts were suitably surprised by the ruse. Instead of facing a squadron of nearly defenseless bombers, two hundred fighter aircraft including every F-15 and F-16 that Admiral Rawlins could scratch up came diving out of the clouds, hot on the heels of their own missiles.

Surprise was total. The initial salvo of AIM-120 AMRAAMS slashed in, and fireballs pock marked the formation of Darts. Some of the quicker Wraith pilots reacted fast enough to evade, but these were very few.

The Air Force fighter aircraft dove straight into the darts, short range missiles and guns flashing, and the chaos was complete as the battle degenerated into a wild melee.

"Austin flight, boost for orbit!" DiFalco ordered. The F/A-141s turned their noses skyward and went to maximum thrust, leaving the desperate dogfight behind them. DiFalco wondered if any of those pilots would survive.

He didn't have time to think about it. His squadron broke atmosphere, and their target was before them, waiting.

"Standard attack run. Deploy decoys," DiFalco said.

Dozens of decoy missiles leapt from their hardpoints. Each one was nothing more than an electronic warfare package intended to mimic the the signature of one of his real fighters. Point defense fire erupted from the hive ship.

"Evasive maneuvers," DiFalco ordered.

His squadron started weaving, denying the Wraith ship easy targets. Much of the hive ship's fire was concentrated on the decoys, but these were steadily being destroyed, leaving only real fighters as targets. His display showed one fighter destroyed. Then another, then two more.

But they weren't going to be able to stop him. He could see that now.

At the last moment, his squadron came together and they concentrated their fire on their target. A staccato rhythm of naquadah enhanced nuclear detonations erupted across the hive's hull, and DiFalco's cockpit window automatically darkened to protect his eyes from the searing light.

In a flash, his remaining fighters were past.

"Hive has been severely damaged, but not destroyed," his wingman reported. "We are not detecting the energy signature of the Stargate, however. We took it out!"

"Alright, Austin flight, fall back to Earth. Head for Arnold AFB. I don't think that's one been hit yet," DiFalco said. He switched channels. "Stargate Command, we weren't able to destroy the hive ship, but we did take out the gate. You are clear."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Enemy cruiser is directly overhead!" Harriman shouted.

"Dammit! Set the gate to auto dial," Landry ordered. The gate started dialing, but Landry knew it was already too late. "Activate emergency evacuation transport!" A series of white flashes later, all the remaining personnel on the base were transported directly to Area 51.

The gate had locked in the sixth chevron just as the bombardment hit.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Everybody down, NOW!" Colonel Lorne shouted. He looked away from the bright flash, preserving his vision. After a few seconds the overpressure wave hit, and it pushed him several feet.

Coughing, he scrambled to his feet and looked off to the west, seeing a massive fireball rising into the sky.

"I'm sure they got out of there," Teyla said.

"I hope so," Lorne said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"The plan sort of worked," Landry said. Landry's sour mood was palpable, even over the video conference connection. "We took out the Stargate blocking us, but the SGC was destroyed by orbital bombardment before we could get a message out. The entire Cheyenne Mountain complex has been destroyed."

Rawlins pinched his nose against the coming headache. "I'm just glad you got your people out."

"So am I," Landry said.

"Keep your head down and try to stay alive. We may have lost the gate in the SGC, but it's not the only gate we have. Cavalry's coming soon. Rawlins out." Rawlins cut the connection and opened a new one.

The call was answered by a dour looking man who had almost on hair left. "What can I do for you?"

"Mr. Woolsey, good to see you're still alive," Rawlins said. "Stargate Command has been destroyed by orbital bombardment. We need to use Atlantis's gate. Contact the Delta Site and issue a Code Zulu."

Woolsey nodded. "Understood, Admiral."

"Don't keep the gate active any longer than you need to. I don't want the Wraith to find Atlantis if it can be helped."

Woolsey smiled. "I'll be brief and to the point then."


	25. Chapter 25

_Author's Note: Had to make a few changes and repost this one._

**Chapter 25**

Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Ransom sipped his coffee appreciatively. He hadn't been too sure how he'd felt about having Navy personnel assigned to his command, but he had to admit their new Navy cook could make coffee that was good enough for God to drink.

"Enjoying yourself," Major Tom Danson, his XO said.

"Immensely," Ransom replied.

"Any word from the front on the Alliance?" Danson asked.

"Nothing yet," Ransom said. "Seems kind of odd, I'd have expected the show to get started by now. Maybe I should-"

"Unscheduled activation," the intercom announced. Ransom looked up sharply to see the Stargate spinning as symbols locked in.

"I wonder what this is going to be about," Danson muttered.

The final symbol locked in, and the gate activated, establishing a wormhole.

"Receiving transmission," Danson said. "It's Atlantis base."

"Put it on," Ransom said. The video communications screen activated.

"Mr. Woolsey," Ransom greeted. "What can I do for you-" Ransom ground to a halt. Woolsey had a haunted look on his face, and he knew right then something wasn't right.

Woolsey spoke two words. "Code Zulu."

Somewhere in the building, Ransom heard a coffee cup shatter on the floor, followed by a few gasps of disbelief. "Situation?" Ransom asked, sounding far more calm than he actually was.

"Transmitting data now," Woolsey said. "Short version: we've got about 200 Alliance and Wraith warships pounding us to scrap. Orders are to recall the fleet to Earth."

"What!? How?" Danson half shouted.

"It doesn't matter how," Woolsey said. "I have to cut this connection, if I keep open any longer, the enemy will find us. Spread the word, Colonel. Atlantis out."

Without another word, the connection cut.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Captain Jameson settled into his command chair, and he felt sick at the knowledge that his worst nightmare had come true. He hit his chair communicator. "Engine Room, Commander Lafferty," his chief engineer replied.

"Commander, I take it you've heard the news?"

"Aye, sir. I've got the emergency activation sequence on the neutrino-ion generators loaded up and ready to go," Lafferty said.

"God bless you, Commander," Jameson said. "Get her started."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Jameson's chair indicated an incoming connection, which he accepted. "Jameson," he said.

"Captain," Admiral Brinkman said. "It would seem we have a problem."

"That we do, sir," Jameson replied. "I've got my engineer getting her warmed up now. We'll be ready for launch in two minutes."

"Good," Brinkman said. "Inform me once we're under way. Brinkman out."

"Engineering reports neutrino-ion generators online," Lieutenant Commander Ramirez, his ops officer reported.

"Disconnect the power feed from the shipyard," Jameson said.

"Power feed disconnected. We are on internal power. All system nominal."

"Clear all moorings," Jameson said.

"Moorings are cleared."

"Helm, take us out."

The _USS North Carolina_ slid smoothly from the shipyard.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Unacceptable!" one of the Captains shouted. The discussion devolved into a shouting match.

Frustrated, Admiral Brinkman brought his fist down. "SILENCE!" he yelled. Even over the video conferencing connection, his anger was apparent. Everybody shut up.

"We cannot return to Earth piecemeal, or they'll pick us off one at a time," Brinkman growled.

"But, sir," one of the captains, a young-ish looking man who commanded a destroyer squadron said. "Code Zulu requires us to return to Earth as soon as possible."

"Yes," Brinkman agreed. "It does not require us to commit suicide in detail." Several other captains started grumbling.

"I know we're all worried about our families back home, but charging in willy-nilly will get both us and them killed," Brinkman said. "So, I repeat: we will rendevous at Alpha Centauri before proceeding to Earth. We will wait as long as we can to gather as many ships as we can before proceeding. We will need every one."

"This is a violation of standing orders," another captain said, this one an older looking man commanding a battlecruiser in Brinkman's own fleet.

"I am countermanding standing orders," Brinkman said, frostily. The battlecruiser captain cut the connection.

"Admiral," Captain Jameson said over his connection, "the _Athens_ and her battlegroup are breaking formation."

Brinkman sighed. "Understood."

"Should we try to stop them?" Jameson asked.

Brinkman looked at the system map in CIC, watching the battlecruiser squadron spin up its hyperdrives. "No, Captain. There will be enough death soon enough, and I will not fire on my own side."

Jameson nodded. "Aye, aye, sir."

Reports came in, and only about a fifth of the fleet took off directly for Earth. Those ships would be sorely missed, but it wasn't as bad as he had feared it would be. It would have to do.

"All ships, rendevous at Alpha Centauri," he ordered. He cut the connection, hoping that enough of the fleet would go to the rendevous to win the coming battle.

His comm panel chirped for attention again. He accepted the connection. "Captain McMurtry," Brinkman greeted.

McMurtry was a spare man of average height. He spoke with a formal British accent. "I believe I can have _Warspite_ ready to sail within a few hours."

The _Warspite_ was a battleship just like _North Carolina_, one that the British had under construction. The Royal Navy hadn't wanted to feel left out. Brinkman cursed under his breathe the Alliance's timing, for _Warspite_ had not finished construction. He would've very much liked to have her with him in the coming battle.

Brinkman shook his head. "Your ship is barely 40% completed. You have, what, one working sublight engine and one shield generator and no weapons?"

"And interstellar navigation, though no sublight navigation," McMurtry said.

"Sorry, Captain, but there's little you could do. The Alliance hasn't found this base yet, however. Prioritize your ship's construction to have engines, navigation, and life support finished next. If the battle goes ill, load up as many people as you can hold and then run as far and as fast as you can. You might even consider retreating to another galaxy nearby. Our civilization has to survive somewhere if we lose this war," Brinkman said.

McMurtry didn't look happy, but he didn't argue.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Captain St. Crowe, reporting as ordered sir," Amanda announced, coming to attention.

"At ease," the man seated at Mitchell's desk answered. He was a thin, wiry looking man with a full head of dark hair and a mischevious smile, though that smile was in abeyance.

He rose from his chair and offered his hand. She took it. "Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard."

"Colonel," she said.

"I regret the circumstances which have put me here in command of this squadron. I know that morale probably isn't too good right now. Just remember that Mitchell was captured alive; we may yet get him back."

"If you say so, sir," Amanda said without feeling.

_Damn,_ Sheppard thought. _She's taking it about as poorly as the rest of the squadron._ He wasn't sure what to do about it, but it would have to be something good and soon. He'd seen the look of someone who had decided she has nothing to live for but vengeance before, and Amanda St. Crowe was personifying it.

"I think, in light of recent events, we should-" Sheppard didn't finish. His comm panel chirped, demanding attention.

He accepted the connection. "Colonel Caldwell. I'm sorry I haven't stopped by to talk yet, but things have been busy down here."

"Don't worry about that. Do everything you can to get the squadron ready," Caldwell said.

"Is something wrong, sir?" Sheppard asked.

"We've received a Code Zulu from Earth."

"What?" Sheppard asked.

"Earth is under attack. We don't have much in the way of details, but we know it's bad. We're going to rendevous shortly with Admiral Brinkman at Alpha Centauri. Get your squadron ready."

"Understood, Colonel," Sheppard said.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"We're getting a message from the Tau'ri ships," the communications officer said.

"What sort of message?" Sa'vel asked.

"They are receiving a Code Zulu from the Tau'ri. It is an emergency protocol that recalls all of the Tau'ri's ships in case the Tau'ri itself is attacked."

Teal'c looked sharply at the communications officer. "The Tau'ri? Under attack? By who, how?"

"The message indicates a massive combined Alliance and Wraith fleet is attacking the Tau'ri," the communications officer said.

Teal'c's breathe went out of him. He leaned over and supported himself on his console, distraught at the thought of his friends facing battle without him.

_It was a trick, it must've been,_ Teal'c thought. _The data we gathered on their plans was false, a __plant. But how could the Alliance have ensured we picked up the false clues? It would've required __someone with access to sensitive information and an understanding of Tau'ri military operations._

_ Someone like Sa'vel._ The thought hit him like a thunderbolt and his adrenaline spiked in response to his epic fury. Teal'c turned to face Sa'vel, only to catch the butt of a staff weapon to the nose. Stars exploded in his eyes, and he fell to the deck. Teal'c turned and stared up at Sa'vel, hate pouring from his eyes and his voice. "Why?"

"Because they're going to win," Sa'vel said simply. "I have seen what the Wraith can do, and we can't win. They will drown us in numbers so great, that not even the Tau'ri's infernal weapons will stop them. I made a deal with them. They have set aside a few worlds for us and demand tribute, but we will be left alone. Surely it is better to sacrifice some so that our race might survive."

Grinding his teeth, Teal'c came slowly to his feet, and he planted himself before Sa'vel. "Shova!" he spat. He would reflect, later, how ironic it was for him to use the epithet that had been used against him for so many years. But it fit. "Do you truly think our enemies will let you live in peace? They will demand more, and more, and more until finally, there will be nothing left, and they will take you, just as they have everyone else."

"Fool. I had thought you would be wiser, that you would see that this was the only way to ensure our race's survival. If you cannot see that however, then you will die."

Teal'c stood straight, unyielding. "Then I die free."

Just before Sa'vel fired his staff weapon, Teal'c touched a small device on his shoulder, and he disappeared from Sa'vel's ship in a flash.

He reappeared on the bridge of the closest Tau'ri ship. "But perhaps I shall not die today," he said.

The ship's captain came to his feet. "Teal'c? What's going on? Why are you here?"

"We are betrayed, " Teal'c said. "Sa'vel is an Alliance agent. He ensured that we would find the fake intelligence that the Alliance created for us, compelling the Tau'ri to disperse it's forces, leaving it's homeworld undefended!"

The captain's jaw dropped, but he recovered pretty quickly. "XO! Sound general quarters. Arm weapons and lock on to Sa'vel's ship. Prepare to fire!"

"Weapons locked."

"Fire!"

But before he finished saying the word, Sa'vel's ship entered hyperspace.

The captain pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. "Damn!" He settled after a moment. "We don't have time to chase him. Helm, set a course for Alpha Centauri."


	26. Chapter 26

_Author's Note: Found a minor continuity error and had to repost this one. I doubt anyone noticed it, but I try to keep these things straight._

**Chapter 26**

Sam swore as she bumped her head, again. The small compartment she had half way crawled into was cramped with wiring and control crystals, one of which was malfunctioning. The room's main lighting was still out, and she was still working with only the illumination of a flashlight.

Which decided to crap out at that moment. She swore poisonously, frustrated. Crawling through lower decks trying to fix things wasn't really the job description of a ship's CO, but her XO was quite capable of running the ship, seeing how little of it was left. And working on the ship kept her mind off of Jack's precarious situation.

She opened another bank of small control crystals and found the crystal she was looking for. Removing it, she shimmied her way out of the crawlspace. Standing up, she handed the charred, damaged crystal to one of the engineering staff. "That would be your culprit," she said.

"General Carter," Lieutenant Colonel Richard Haven, her XO, addressed her. "The doctor's on the bridge. He wants to talk about Jack."

A cold fear gripped her stomach. "On my way."

She entered the bridge to find the ship's Chief Medical Officer, Carl Hanson waiting for her.

"How is he, doctor?" she asked.

"It's actually kind of hard to say," Hanson said. "Under normal circumstances, I'd say his chances of recovery were zero, but that nanite tech really has been working miracles. I'm kind of blazing new ground, as General O'Neill is the first case where this technology has been used to try to save an injured patient."

"Can you tell me anything?" Sam asked. It came out sounding angrier than she'd meant it to.

"My semi-educated guess is that if he survives the next 24 hours, he will recover. I just don't know what his odds on that are," Hanson said. "Listen, when I say I don't know, I mean that. I'm not saying that as a soft way of saying 'not good'. I really and truly don't know."

Sam nodded. "Thank you doctor."

"General," her helmsman said. "We're getting something on passives. Hyperspace footprints."

Sam groaned. "XO, do we have anything we can fight with?"

Haven looked grim. "We don't have propulsion, through we can change which direction we're facing. We've got two railguns functional, through one of them has been cutoff from its ammunition feed by damage. I think the number four plasma beam will fire once but it's cutoff from coolant by damage. It will almost certainly destroy the emitter to fire it without coolant."

"Shields?"

"No, ma'am. We're still working on it."

"Alright," Sam said, wiping blood and sweat from her brow. "Get what we have armed."

"General," her helmsman said. "IFF reads them as friendly."

"Give me a visual feed," Sam said. The holo-tank reconfigured to take a feed from one of the few remaining external telescopes.

Hyperspace windows were depositing ships in a steady stream, and they were clearly emerging in formation. Only a few ships at first, but the pace picked up rapidly as more and more gunmetal grey ships dropped into normal space. The last hyperspace window to open was huge. It disgorged an enormous ship, all gleaming metal and weapons emplacements.

"IFF says that's the _North Carolina_," her helmsman said.

The fleet had returned home.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"Admiral, you should see this," Commander Garrett Hawke, Brinkman's chief of staff, said.

The sensor feed showed Earth. It had been savaged. Where Boston, New York, Dallas, and several other large cities should've been there were only smoking ruins. Everyone in the room came slowly to their feet as they took in the view of the carnage that had been wrought upon their world.

"Sensors show that they're beginning a general bombardment, hitting as many population centers as they can. They started just after we arrived," Hawke said.

"They're trying to do as much damage as possible just in case they lose this battle. They're willing to deprive themselves of a large portion of a major human food source to neutralize us as a threat," Brinkman said. "Disposition of the enemy fleet?"

The view changed. It zoomed out, and two angry red indicators started flashing. "They've split their fleet into two groups," Hawke said. "The first group is maintaining low Earth orbit. The second consists of mostly Wraith cruisers. A few have landed and set up ground installations while most are...culling the population."

"What are the groundside installations for?" Brinkman asked.

"Unknown."

Brinkman waved a dismissive hand. "They're not important for now." Brinkman touched the display indicating the ships in Earth orbit. "I want a tactical hyperspace jump to land us right on top of those sons of bitches. We'll detach our frigate squadrons to engage Wraith cruisers within Earth's atmosphere. The rest of us will face their main body."

Hawke nodded, then spoke cautiously. "I must remind you, sir, that our hard data on the performance of the new Wraith and Alliance ships is sketchy at best. There are over one hundred and fifty _Ha'taks,_ two dozen Wraith cruisers,and three hive ships in that enemy fleet. We have one battleship, eighteen battlecruisers, and sixty-eight destroyers. They outnumber us two to one in hulls, and by well over ten to one in tonnage."

"I know," Brinkman said. "But we don't really have any other option do we?"

"I guess not," Hawke said.

"Plot the jump."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The entire fleet emerged simultaneously right on top of the cruisers and _Ha'taks_ screening the hive ships.

The _North Carolina_ turned her prodigiously powerful Asgard weapons against the nearest enemy ships, and she spat death in every direction, opening fire even before the hyperspace window closed behind her. Eight ships were destroyed in the first second and several others were disabled.

Admiral Brinkman shook his fist. "Alright!"

"Immediate area is clear. Or clear enough, at any rate," Hawke said.

"Launch all fighters," Brinkman ordered.

Every fighter in the fleet swept from their motherships' hangar bays, each one laden with weapons.

Return fire from the enemy fleet started flaring against their shields, but it was still somewhat disorganized from the blazing surprise attack they'd launched. "Detach our frigates to engage Wraith cruisers that are culling. Fighter squadrons should follow the frigates down through atmosphere to take out as many Darts as possible. I don't want any more people getting kidnapped by these things," Brinkman said.

"Admiral, they're readjusting their formation, probably about to get their defensive fire plan adjusted," Hawke said.

"Don't give them a chance, then. Get into them!"

_North Carolina_ swatted a few more _Ha'taks_ contemptuously as the fleet waded into a sea of cruisers and _Ha'taks_. It wasn't pretty or elegant. Earth's defenders attacked head long into the enemy fleet with a ferocity that Brinkman didn't know was possible. Every man and woman on his ships fought with the skill and determination granted by desperation, all of them knowing that their families, those that had any family left after the day's events, were putting forth their last full measure to protect them. They were Earth's finest, drawn from multiple nations. They charged into the teeth of death gladly, driven by thoughts of home.

Admiral Brinkman was damned proud of them.

Plasma beams flashed like strobes, shields flared and buckled, and hulls were blasted open by weapons fire. The screening destroyers started taking ever mounting losses, so they broke formation and arranged themselves into wolf packs of three ships each, using their superior speed and maneuverability to avoid the heaviest guns of the enemy while constantly nipping at their heels. The battlecruisers closed up into tighter formation with the _North Carolina_, concentrating their firepower. Earth's fleet was one big ball of Asgard powered death, and any ships that strayed within it's envelope met it's end.

They didn't have it all their own way. The upgraded Wraith cruisers and Alliance _Ha'taks_ were much more capable than the old ones. Where a battlecruiser could formerly disembowel one of the older designs with a single shot from a plasma beam, the new ones were tolerating four, five, and sometimes even six hits before being destroyed. These lesser ships still fell in one shot before _North Carolina's_ much heavier plasma beams, but she was only one ship, however powerful.

Brinkman's fleet broke the enemy fleet's outer screening units. The hive ships, surrounded by yet more cruisers and _Ha'taks_, lay ahead. The two fleets came into range of one another and the terrible embrace again. Nuclear warheads from the destroyers went off with ear searing brilliance among the enemy. Blue and orange energy bolts from the enemy thundered down on Brinkman's main force, and battlecruisers began to die.

A volley hit the _North Carolina's_ shields and momentarily overpowered her intertial compensators. Brinkman was jerked rudely by the impact, but he managed to stay in his chair. "Engineering is reporting is that primary shields are down. Secondary shield array is online," one of his officers reported. Just then, his chair comm beeped for attention. He accepted the call.

"Admiral," Captain Jameson said formally. "We are coming into range of two of the hive ships."

Brinkman nodded. "Very well. Fight your ship, Captain."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The space between the _North Carolina_ and two of the Wraith hive ships was alive with energy so intense, nothing could live there. A few tried; several _Ha'taks_ swooped in and tried to screen the hive ships, only to be reduced to their constituent components within a few seconds. Two battlecruisers, the _Thessalonica_ and the _Ernest J. King_ tried to do the same for the _North Carolina,_ but they met a similar end under the guns of the hive ships. The remaining ships did their best to avoid the attention of the warring capital ships, concentrating on each other.

Captain Jameson could do nothing but hold on for the ride. Volley after volley of weapons fire had hammered into his ship, but she remained in action.

"Plasma Beams nine and eleven are offline," Commander Don Granger, Jameson's XO said. "Secondary shields are about to buckle. Hull breach on Deck Six."

"Keep firing," Jameson ordered. Another stupendous volley struck his ship, and she heaved like a broken masted galleon.

"Secondary shields are down. Tertiary shields online and holding. Neutrino-ion Generator 5 is offline."

_Last layer of shields,_ Jameson thought. _Fortunately, the ship doesn't need all six of its Neutrino-ion generators, so that little loss shouldn't hurt us much._

Jameson stared hard into the holo display, not bothering to hide his anger. "Enough. Take that bastard down," Jameson indicated the nearer hive ship. _North Carolina_ turned all her guns that she could bring to bear on the hive ship, leaving the other ships of his fleet to deal with the lesser enemies. Every plasma beam she had still working, twenty-six in all, fired as one, lighting up the entire sky with their fury. Hull plating shattered, spinning away glowing red hot, and the wounded hive ship listed and fell out of formation, though she continued to fire.

_North Carolina_ fired again. Her beams cut deep into the wounded hive ship, gutting her. She broke into three pieces, one of them promptly exploding with a flash so bright that it would've literally blinded anyone who might've looked at it directly.

The entire enemy fleet retargeted, and _North Carolina's_ last layer of shields failed. Energy weapons slammed into her hull like freight trains. The intertial dampeners were momentarily overloaded, and Jameson found himself face down on the deck. Scrabbling, he got back to his feet. "Damage report!"

"Our ablative armor protected us from a lot of it, but we're still hit pretty good. Only two neutrino-ion generators are still running; port side weapons are operating under local control on reserve power. They're cut off from the main grid and are operating at reduced strength," Granger said.

"Starboard side weapons?"

"Fully functional."

"Helm," Jameson said. "Seventy degrees to port. Engage with starboard side batteries."

_North Carolina_ slewed her wounded flank aside, and brought her undamaged weapons to bear. Plasma beams flashed, punching into the hive ship's hull, coring out her main life support plant.

A massive return volley slammed home into _North Carolina's_ hull, and the world went mad.

He must've blacked out, because Jameson didn't remember how he'd managed to end up on the other side of the bridge. His head hurt like hell, and he swayed a bit as he stood. He stumbled back to his chair. "We have to finish him while we still can!"

"Power systems are severely damaged. We've only got six plasm beams still running on main power," Granger said.

"Then it will have to be enough. Use emergency overload. I know, it will burn out the plasma-beam emitters, but we've about had it anyway. Our other ships won't have a chance against that hive ship," Jameson said. He didn't mention the third hive ship, hanging back from the battle. That third hive ship was obviously damaged, probably severely. He guessed Earth's defenders had bloodied it pretty good in the opening stages of the battle. He didn't know if the rest of the fleet could take down that last wounded hive ship or not. He certainly hoped so, because he was sure his ship wouldn't be up to it.

He brought his attention back to the hive ship they were facing. It was getting into position to bring undamaged weapons to bear, and he couldn't delay any longer. "Fire!" he ordered.

_North Carolina_ overloaded six of her plasma-beam emitters and every one of them melted down and destroyed themselves. The energy released however was simply more than their target could take, and she went up in an eye searing boil.

One last volley from the destroyed hive ship crashed into _North Carolina_. Earth's new battleship had fought magnificently; indeed, some of her weapons were still engaging other ships, albeit they were under local control and operating at reduced power, but this was just two much. Too many redundant control runs and redundant systems had been damaged. The incoming fire savaged the big ship's internals, and the last of her neutrino-ion generators went offline. Running on emergency power only, she drifted out of formation, leaving her smaller consorts to deal with the remaining enemy.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Amanda St. Crowe landed her F-302 as instructed. The hangar was a bustle of activity as work crews violated every safety reg on file to get the F-302s rearmed. The work was being done by men in vacuum suits; the hangar bays were exposed to space. Several fires burned out of control on _Daedalus's_ upper decks; she had seen them during approach. Despite this, the ship's main weapons were still online and she was still slugging it out with the enemy.

One of the new ships in Earth's fleet was actually a carrier, the _Bunker Hill_. It had a compliment of F/A-141s which were being armed for an anti-shipping strike. Amanda assumed that the goal was to try to finish off that last damage hive ship before it trashed Earth's smaller battlecruisers and destroyers.

All of that was distant to her, however, and it didn't seem to matter. She could only see one thing. The beeping of the receiver in her cockpit that was picking up Colonel Mitchell's subcutaneous transmitter. It mocked her with the knowledge that he was so close by and, yet, so far away. She knew the Wraith had set up some ground facilities on Earth not long after they'd attacked and taken out Earth's defending ships. They were probably holding pens for when the Wraith wanted a snack. The knowledge that Mitchell was in such a place now was simply too much, and a molten hatred boiled over in her. Not so long ago, she might not have let such a feeling rule her, but that dutiful young woman was gone. She had shied away from that truth in her own mind for a while, but now she faced it, accepted it, and embraced it.

Her F-302A was of the Block 10 configuration. It still retained its second seat although a second pilot wasn't required, and so the seat normally remained empty. That made her plan workable. She also figured she needed a weapon. She always flew with a standard issue M-9 as part of her survival pack, but she figured a bit more would help. Unfortunately, the military was very good at keeping track of where its weapons were, and there was simply no way she could've smuggled a weapon out of the armory without anyone noticing. Fortunately, she had access to another weapon that wasn't on any inventory lists. She'd stowed it in the compartment under her canopy that normally contained her survival gear.

The flight bay directly in front of her was clear. It was now or never.

She snapped the canopy closed and fired up her engines.

"Alpha Two, this is flight. Your engines have engaged, go to emergency shutdown!" her radio crackled.

Clearly, flight ops thought it was a malfunction. It was, of course, nothing of the sort. She picked a clear lane, cut in her counter gravs to get off the deck, and shot out of the hanger back into space.

"Alpha Two, what in the fiery hell are you doing?" her radio howled at her.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "But I can't just leave him down there."

Another voice came on the radio. "This is Colonel Sheppard. What in the hell are you doing?"

"I can't leave him down there alone with them," she said.

Sheppard groaned. "Dammit, we need you. The strike against the hive ship is about to go in, and we need every pilot out there protecting the bombers."

Amanda sighed. "I wish it didn't have to be this way." She cut off her radio.

"Dammit!" Sheppard swore.

With a swift motion of her control stick, Amanda angled into a steep dive towards Earth. She streaked down through the atmosphere like a homesick meteor. The turbulence was so violent that it overpowered her inertial compensators making the ride very rough. She rode the tides of disturbed air like a surfer, not fighting them but embracing them as she passed.

Her radar indicated six Darts rising to meet her from her destination. That molten fury inside her burst fully alive.

"Not today," she grated. She locked on to the first one and snapped off an AIM-140. With practiced motions, she locked onto and fired on successive darts. She fired off all six of her AIM-140s in less than two seconds. Her missiles flew straight and true, and six less Wraith stood between her and Mitchell.

She dove like mad, pushing her speed past Mach 9 in her descent. With almost no time to spare, she flared out, shrieking across the flat Arizona desert at an altitude of not more than 30 feet. Her insane descent had caught the defenders by surprise. The nearest darts were several minutes away. If she could just get her fighter set down quickly enough...

She saw her target. It was, as she suspected, a Wraith prison camp. It was a place that humans were kept until Wraith troops got hungry and decided they wanted a snack. The thought of a Wraith tearing the life unwillingly from Colonel Mitchell redoubled her hate, and she focused on the target.

There were a number of patrolling Wraith and Alliance soldiers outside. Amanda's fighter screamed down upon the prison like a bird of prey, stooping upon its victim. Her railguns spat kinetic death. Hyper velocity projectiles ripped through the sentries, turning limbs and torsos into a fine mist.

In a blink she was past, but she was far from done. She hauled the screaming F-302 around back towards the prison.

The prison approached once again at blinding speed. She cut in her countergravs, and used them to angle her nose upwards so that she was tail on to the ground. Before the 302 started spinning out of control, she set her counter gravs back to standard, and gritted her teeth.

What she was attempting was technically possible but had never been attempted. Certainly, no one anticipated needing to actually do it, so no one had tempted fate in seeing if the 302s systems could handle it.

_We'll know soon enough if she can take it,_ she thought to herself.

The g-forces involved in decelerating from such a speed were insane. The inertial dampeners couldn't even begin to compensate for them all. She quickly went to 7gs right off the bat. Her vision began to tunnel as the blood drained from her brain into her feet.

It wasn't going to be enough deceleration. She put the counter gravs on full power, and the force jumped to 14gs. She screamed as she descended into darkness.

And then the fighter stopped. Her vision came back in a rush. She gasped. Her head swam and she had to fight to exert any kind of control.

_Get up, you don't have time,_ her thoughts shouted at her.

She opened her canopy. Throwing off her helmet, she vaulted over the side of the fighter and landed in a crouch. She nearly collapsed right there, still reeling from the effects of her deceleration maneuver.

Grabbing onto the side of the hovering fighter, she hit a release that opened the stowage compartment. Instead of her normal survival gear, a long, gleaming length of sheathed steel reflected the sunlight, greeting her.

She took up the sword and slung it across her back with practiced ease. With the weapon settled, she drew her M-9. With blue, icy hell radiating from her eyes she advanced on the Wraith holding facility.

There were dead Wraith and Alliance troops everywhere. The sight gave her a certain grim satisfaction, but she didn't dwell on it. As she neared the door, she noticed one of the Alliance sentries moaning. His back was broken, and he was dragging himself forward with his hands towards the relative safety of the building, a long trail of red extending out behind him.

He looked up as she approached. "Please..." he choked out.

She extended the M-9 toward the dying man and casually shot him in passing without really looking at him or slowing her pace, giving him no more consideration than she would've had she been stomping on a particularly offensive insect.

The discharge of the pistol must've gotten someone's attention. Two Wraith appeared in the entrance to the low set pre-fab building. The cold part of her was annoyed at the distraction. The hate filled part welcomed the opportunity to kill. The muzzle flash of two shots from her M-9 lit up her eyes as she punched two 9mm rounds through the Wraith's skulls.

She ran up to the right side of the door, and leaned out a bit to look inside. What appeared to be a human was lying in wait for her with a staff weapon. She saw an orange flash and she screamed as a blazing hot lance struck her left shoulder.

She reflexively dropped the M-9. Her ceramic body armor had taken most of the blast, but not all of it, and her flight suit was burning.

Shrieking and cursing, she tore at the flight suit, finally casting it aside.

She gritted her teeth moaning against the pain. She could still move her shoulder, but it was clear she had some significant burns. The detached part of her mind informed her they were likely second degree, and that the agonizing pain meant that they weren't actually as bad as they could be. The worst burns were painless because they destroyed the nerves.

She should've retreated right then. Injured, alone, and wearing only BDU pants and a tank top was no way to go into battle.

"Call for reinforcements," she heard a Wraith voice yell from inside.

Yes, retreating would've smart. She didn't care about smart right at that moment.

She picked up the M-9 and loaded a fresh magazine. She rounded the corner, and saw a Wraith in the main entry hallway. He looked up surprised to see her, and pitiless blue eyes were the last thing he ever saw as she blew his brains out.

Three more Wraith rounded a corner. Knowing she didn't have enough ammo to kill them all with brute force and not enough time to carefully go for head shots, she quickly shot each one in the chest.

It didn't kill any of them, but it slowed them all down. She shuffled her pistol to her left hand and jerked the hand a half sword from its scabbard with her right and advanced grimly. She beheaded the first one with a single stroke. The second one blocked her sword stroke with its stunner, but she was prepared for this. She brought the M-9 around and shot him in the face at point blank range. She heard movement behind her and knew more were coming. Without slowing, she pivoted 180 degrees and elbowed the third Wraith in the face, stunning him and leaving her facing two additional Wraith that had been trying to sneak up on her.

She emptied the M-9 into the two newcomers. Once it locked open on an empty magazine, she drew back and threw it, hitting one of the Wraith in the head and stunning him momentarily. She gripped her blade with both hands, and went after the other Wraith. She lifted the sword high as if to make a powerful overhead slash. The Wraith overcompensated, holding his stunner high to block her. Instead, she brought the pommel down under the Wraith's stunner, and she was rewarded with a satisfying snap as the pommel cracked his skull. She planted her feet, and swung the blade in a powerful diagonal slash, driven by the improved reaction time and speed that the enhancement nanite treatments she'd received provided. She caught the Wraith on it's left shoulder, the blade easily cleaving through tissue and bone. The Wraith was twisted around as it screamed like a damned soul. With it's torso basically cut in half, it hit the deck hard.

Her instincts screaming warning, Amanda kicked the other Wraith in front of her, throwing him off balance. She reversed her grip on the sword, and thrust it straight back, using her left hip as a guide. The blade shishkabobbed the Wraith she had left earlier. The enemy soldier collapsed, held standing by Amanda's grip on the blade. With a grunt of effort, she used both hands to rip the sword from her enemy's chest, letting him plop unceremoniously to the floor.

The last Wraith had regained its balance. She cast a glare at the creature that could've killed by intensity alone, and she saw something in the creature's eyes she thought she'd never see.

Fear.

The Wraith stumbled back, trying to escape, but she was having none of it. She slashed the Wraith once across his torso, not deep enough to be fatal, but she did open an artery somewhere, spraying green blood. She ignored the ichor. She pinned the Wraith against a wall and hammered the pommel against its head. The breaking of a jaw bone was rather satisfying, so she hit him again. And again. And again. She became aware that someone was screaming, but she wasn't sure who it was. It didn't matter, so she ignored it.

And then she realized it was her.

She howled in rage at the Wraith. She was too infuriated to use words, it was nothing more than an animal sound. She brought the sword around and messily cut the creature's throat.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Mitchell and the other prisoners watched her, unable to breathe or move.

Green Wraith blood soaked her hair, leaving it matted. It showed up clearly on the pale skin of her shoulders and chest. Her chest heaved rapidly with heavy breathing, and she seemed to stare at nothing.

"Mother of mercy," he muttered, for she was truly terrible to behold. He didn't know if the Wraith had any spiritual beliefs, but if they did, he knew what they saw in her icy blue eyes. She was nothing less than the blood-soaked angel of death herself, come to harvest her due in souls.

Mitchell kicked himself into gear and went to her. She didn't seem to notice him at all. He gently put a hand on her shoulder. "Captain," he whispered.

She sucked in a deep breathe and turned towards him, sword pointed at this throat. He backed away quickly, hands up. "Easy," he said. "It's me."

The angel of death released its hold on her, and Mitchell saw his friend return to those blue eyes. She gasped as she came to herself. "We have to go. There's no time!" she shouted.

She turned and ran for the entrance. Mitchell scooped up her discarded M-9. "You have any magazines?"

"Here," she said passing one to him. "Last one."

Mitchell reloaded the pistol and then stopped to slap a control on a slain guard's computer, opening all the other cells. "Get out of here! Everybody, move it! Take their weapons! Run!" he shouted.

Without another word, they dashed for her hovering fighter. Amanda looked up and saw a flight of Darts in the distance. "Dammit," she said. The two of them clamored up the side of the fighter and got strapped in. She took off before the canopy even finished closing.

Not a moment too soon. Blue-white energy bolts streaked past her canopy. She pulled the fighter into a hard turn and started juking randomly to throw off their aim.

"Not that I am ungrateful, for the rescue" Mitchell said, "but we seem to have some issues here."

"Yeah," she said absent-mindedly. "Might've been better if you'd stayed put."

"Are you kidding?" he said. "Anywhere is better than waiting for a Wraith to come along and tear my life out through his palm." Mitchell checked his display. "We've got fourteen bandits on our tail, all Darts. Looks like about twenty-four Death Gliders are also approaching from the other direction."

"Sounds fun," she said.

"I assume this little rescue of yours is unofficial?" Mitchell asked. "That would explain why we're alone out here."

"You can lock me up if we live, sir," she said, throwing the fighter into a tight left turn. The Darts stayed with her, however, and it was all she could do just to stay alive.

"Enough of this," she muttered. She cut out her inertial compensators, then hit her counter gravs. She forced the fighter to fly sideways while slowing down precipitously. The Darts overshot her, and she shot down three of them with her rail guns as they passed.

She quickly cut her counter gravs and inertial compensators back in, and was now behind 'only' eleven darts. She salvoed her two remaining AIM-18s, scoring two quick kills. She laid down on her railgun trigger and four more Darts joined their slain brethren.

"Nice shooting, Captain," Mitchell commented. She turned and he saw a huge smile on her face.

"Something funny?" he asked.

"No sir," she replied.

"What are you smiling about then?"

"Because at last I have a chance to fight and die in a battle I can be proud of," she said.

"Well," Mitchell smiled. "I suppose I can appreciate that, although I think I can do just fine without the 'die' part of that. Since I'm here, I'll call em out and you take em out. Deal?"

"Deal, sir," she said.

"Alright, besides those Darts, the Death Gliders will be here in thirty seconds. They'll be attacking from high altitude," Mitchell said.

"Roger that," she replied. She continued to wrench the fighter through various turns and twists, keeping behind the Wraith darts. Several peeled off to slip in behind her. Nothing she could do about it, so she kept after those that didn't break off.

She used her railguns like scalpels. She lined up one shot after another like she was a machine of destruction. Align sights, fire half second burst, destroyed Dart. Move on. Repeat.

"Incoming, six o'clock!" Mitchell yelled.

She threw her fighter into a climbing right turn, deftly avoiding a flock of energy bolts. Instead of returning to the previous group of Darts she'd been tormenting, she angled directly for the approaching Death Gliders.

Amanda cut her compensators again. She wagged the nose of her fighter back and forth, spraying railgun rounds all over the sky. Four Death Gliders died immediately. She skidded the fighter as they passed, taking another out another one in passing. The odd flight path created by her compensator tricks was throwing their aim off as usual, and she smiled hungrily.

She turned her compensators back on, and and instead of turning after the Death Gliders, she went to maximum power and angled for orbit. Not expecting this, both the Death Gliders and Darts were left behind.

Once she left atmosphere, she leveled off. Using inertial compensator tricks was dangerous in atmosphere. She could get away with more of that in vacuum.

After the Death Gliders and Darts left atmosphere, she rolled out and swooped down upon them once again. She repeated her sliding trick by cutting out her inertial compensators. She downed three more Death Gliders and two Darts in passing.

But now, she had over thirty bandits on her tail. Mitchell politely informed her of that fact.

"Hey," she said jovially. "Just thirty? Getting kind of boring around here."

The enemy fighters made careening turns to get in behind her, but she'd fooled them again. She left her inertial compensators off and turned completely around, so that she was flying backwards. Rather than looking at her exhaust, they were staring down the business end of her railguns.

She laid on her firing trigger. More projectiles lanced into the formation of enemy fighters. One after another they exploded, like fiery popcorn kernels popping. She turned her compensators on, pulled up, and went to full power. She threw fire into the bellies of two more enemy fighters, blasting them apart.

The Death Glider and Dart pilots simply weren't prepared for her ferocious onslaught. Their formation came apart, and the battle devolved into a wild, uncoordinated melee.

Amanda St. Crowe was one with her fighter. She danced among the fools about her, untouchable. They would stumble or make a mistake, and she would be there to destroy them before they could recover, as if it had been pre-ordained from the foundation of the world. Enemy fire would lance in from all directions, and she would effortlessly pass through it unharmed, as if it were the natural order of things.

Mitchell's jaw dropped open. He had never in his life seen flying like this and at that moment he knew that she had been born to flying in a way that he hadn't been. However good of a pilot he was (and he was very good) he could never hope to equal the display she was putting on and he knew it.

The enemy fighters fell, one after another, unable to stand against the raving force of mass destruction that had been loosed upon them.

Her luck finally ran out. A Death Glider scored a glancing hit on her right side engine as it swooped past. Smoke poured from the damaged engine and it quickly shutdown. The fighter shuddered and started flying lopsidedly.

Amanda's eyes grew wide as she fought the stick, but the fighter just wasn't responding well. Her loyal steed had given its all.

She smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, sir."

Mitchell smiled back. "It's alright, Captain."

Amanda looked ahead to see two Darts lining up on her. She said a final prayer of forgiveness for herself, and prepared to meet her end.

The sky rippled above and behind the Darts, heralding the decloaking of a frigate. The frigate unleashed a tornado of point defense railgun fire. The formation of Darts went up in a tidal wave of small explosions.

She grabbed the stick and gave the fighter all the power it had left, making a beeline for the frigate. The pursuing fighters took one look at her damaged fighter, and the volume of fire spitting forth from the frigate's point defenses.

They wisely decided that they had other things to do.

"Alpha Two, this is the _HMS Trafalgar,_" the radio announced to her in a clipped British accent. "Your egress path is clear."

"Thank you, _Trafalgar,_" Amanda said. And thank you Jesus.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

After they landed on _Daedalus_, Amanda almost collapsed climbing out of her fighter. The adrenaline had been too much, and she was coming down. Hard. Colonel Sheppard met her his eyes worried. She didn't look him in the eye as she spoke to him. "I suppose I should just report straight to the brig, Colonel."

Sheppard shook his head. "Not yet. You know as well as I do that there will be consequences. But, for now, rest."

Amanda trudged off, shaky and worried. Mitchell shook his head ruefully. "Hard thing."

Sheppard nodded. "She's something else, I'll say that. It's a shame that this will cost her her career."

Mitchell turned, grimacing unhappily as he stared at her battered fighter.

Then he had an idea. Mitchell grabbed one of the ground crewmen. "Did the recorders make it intact?"

"Yes sir," the crewmen said.

"Send a copy of it to my terminal. I need to do some...research," Mitchell said.

Sheppard started grinning. "Colonel Mitchell, I do believe the top brass is going to hate your forever if you're planning on what I think you're planning on."

"They'll get over it," Mitchell replied.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Jameson coughed. They had finally gotten enough fire extinguishers onto Deck 1 to get the fire put out, but the smoke was still circulating through the ship's damaged life support systems. Eyes watering, he looked towards the holo display.

The last hive ship, damaged though it was, was bearing down. The F/A-141s had done their best, even landed a few good hits, but still the hive ship kept coming.

"What do we have left," he choked out.

Commander Granger shook his head. "Two plasma beams are still functional, but are under local control and on emergency naquadah generator power. It's not going to be enough."

"Engines?" Jameson asked. If his weapons wouldn't do it, he could still try to ram them.

"Sorry sir," Granger said. "There's just too much damage to the—Captain, we're getting a hyperspace footprint." Granger peered over his display. "IFF says it's the _Warspite._"

"What?" Jameson said. "That's impossible! She's not even close to being finished with construction."

But there she was. His sensors weren't lying to him. _Warspite_ cruised slowly towards her enemies; they waited at bay, appearing unsure what to do. After what seemed like forever, the tableau broke.

The enemy blinked first.

"They're pulling out," Granger said. "All of them."

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"So, I ordered the shipyard crews to install hologram generators and the ship's standard ECM package as top priority," Captain McMurtry, of the _Warspite_, explained over the video communications link. "In this way, we were able to give the appearance of being fully operational to the enemy."

"Your kidding," Jameson said. "You bluffed them?"

"Quite so," McMurtry replied. "I thought it was rather ingenious. Though I have to give credit to my helmsman, it was his idea."

"Captain, you just saved my ship and crew. Hell, you just saved the whole world. Drinks are on us," Jameson said.

"I look forward to it. Though before we can celebrate, I'm afraid we will need to be towed into dock. We didn't get our sublight navigation systems installed, and my helmsman is getting quite nervous flying the ship with nothing more than a joystick and mark one eyeball."

"You're not the only one that's going to need a tow," Jameson said grimly. "But a few late stragglers from our fleet have been arriving. We'll get it arranged."

"Oh, one last thing, Captain McMurtry," Jameson continued. "Remind me to never play poker against you."

McMurtry chuckled.

Jameson cut the connection and turned to his XO. "Let's at least try to get an engine online so we can make dock. I'd rather not be towed in if I could avoid it."

"Engineering is on it, sir," Granger said. "We're getting long range sensors back on now."

The sensors came up, and they started off trained on Earth. Jameson looked at the readouts he was getting from Earth.

"Dear God," he breathed softly.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

Amanda sat dejectedly in her quarters aboard _Daedalus_. Thoughts swirled around in her head, and she just couldn't control them. She had known this was likely to happen when she disobeyed orders and went after Colonel Mitchell.

It still bothered her. Looking back on it, she was horrified at what she'd done. Officers had to remain calm and rational. They could not afford to let their feelings rule them. To do so was to invite disaster. She was a failure, almost sure to be stripped of her commission and kicked out of the Air Force.

_My father will be so __disappointed__,_ she said, tears forming in her eyes.

The door to her quarters opened slowly. The Marine guard nodded to her. "It's time."

She nodded back, smoothed out a few imagine creases in her dress uniform, and walked as straight as she could to the ship's briefing room. The place was familiar, having spent a lot of time there. What wasn't familiar was the three flag officers sitting behind a table, waiting to pass judgment on her.

Seated in front of the table, in the audience section of the briefing room, she saw Colonel Mitchell, Colonel Sheppard, and, with a start, her father. She looked away from him in shame, unable to meet his gaze. Also present was a Navy Lieutenant Commander that she recognized as her appointed legal counsel, though she didn't remember his name. The prosecution's counsel was seated opposite of him.

Amanda stood at attention and saluted the judges smartly.

"Due to extraordinary circumstances," one of the judges said, "we have decided to conduct your trial immediately following your arraignment. There is too much work to be done for us to tie up any more personnel than we have to for any longer than necessary for this proceeding. Furthermore, we do not wish to make too much of a public scene with this. Now is not the time."

The judge cleared his throat, and read from a piece of paper. "Captain Amanda Genevieve St. Crowe, you are charged with one count of dereliction of duty in the face of the enemy, two counts of insubordination, one count of conduct unbecoming an officer, and one count of theft of government property."

Each count was like a punch to the gut.

"Given the circumstances of this case, recent events, and the sworn testimony of Colonel John Sheppard and Colonel Cameron Mitchell, this court has decided to drop the dereliction, theft, and conduct unbecoming charges. The insubordination charge remains, however. Would you like enter a plea?"

Amanda blinked. Something was odd; there was no reason the charges should've been dropped and her counsel hadn't mentioned anything about this. What had changed? Had some decision been made at the last minute and her lawyer hadn't had time to inform her.

She glanced at her counsel questioningly. He knew she had planned to plead guilty to all the charges, and he nodded assent.

She faced the judges. "Guilty, sir."

The judge nodded, making a note. He looked up briefly at the other two judges, and something passed between them before he spoke again. "I appreciate your honesty, Captain. The judgment of this court is that you be reduced in rank to 1st Lieutenant and suffer a forfeiture of two thirds of your regular pay for the next three months. This court is adjorned."

_What the hell?_ She thought. She should've been clapped in irons, taken off to Leavenworth for about a ten year prison term, and the given a dishonorable discharge, and only if she was lucky. Dereliction of duty in the face of the enemy had gotten people sentenced to death before, after all.

Amanda saluted the judges. After returning her salute, she spun on a heel walked into the corridor.

Mitchell, Sheppard, and her father were waiting for her.

"Could someone tell me what just happened?" she asked.

Colonel Sheppard shrugged. "You got busted down one rank for not listening to me. I was even being nice and everything."

She eyed him warily.

Colonel Mitchell spoke next. "They don't court martial heroes."

"Uhh...what?" she asked.

"Lieutenant, you're famous now. You've been appearing pretty regularly on every working TV left in the world, along with several others. Your story of how you faced down an endless hoard of enemies to rescue your fellow servicemen trapped at the prison camp has proven to be quite a hit with the folks back home," Mitchell said.

"But...how does anyone even know about that?" she asked. She looked into Mitchell's eyes and saw a mischevious gleam and it dawned on her. Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. "You leaked the flight recording!" she hissed.

"Lieutenant," Mitchell said sternly. "I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about. I would never be so irresponsible so as to let a recording that showed you engaging in acts of heroism against the enemy leak out where it might sway public opinion to favor you. I would never do such a thing, would I?"

"Of course not," Sheppard said. "Perish the thought."

"In fact," Mitchell said, "Sheppard and I both nominated you for the Medal of Honor. I'm pretty sure you'll be getting it too."

She shook her head. "It isn't right."

"You shot down over thirty enemy fighters and liberated over sixty prisoners from that Wraith prison camp. I can't think of anything more right," Mitchell said.

"He's right sweetie," Marcus said.

She finally turned and faced her father, hero of the Persian Gulf War. Her eyes burned at the shame she'd brought on her family. "I'm sorry, dad."

Marcus embraced his daughter and shushed her. "I once heard a saying, I don't even remember who said it, but it fits. Officers sometimes have to acquire rank so they can spend it on behalf of their comrades. Maybe I don't have it quite right, but that's the gist of it. I am very proud of you, my daughter. I would never have been strong enough to go through with it the way you did."

"I love you, dad," she said.

"I love you too."

The embrace ended, and she faced Colonel Sheppard. "I'm sorry, Colonel. About ignoring your orders."

"Sometimes, you care about someone enough that you're willing to do anything for them," Sheppard said. "Believe me, I know that better than most." Amanda suspected there was a story behind that, but she didn't ask any further about it.

Sheppard shook hands with Mitchell. "It's always a pleasure, Colonel Mitchell. I'm glad you're back in one piece."

"Me too," Mitchell said. "Take care, Sheppard." Sheppard left, leaving Amanda with Mitchell and her father.

"So dad, they get you cleared to know about what I've been doing?" she asked.

"Actually, no," Marcus answered.

"Technically, the Stargate program is still all classified," Mitchell put in. "But...well, alien forces just openly attacked Earth. Secrecy is a dead letter at this point. I was able to get in contact with your family and brought your dad here. It was kind of tough, with all the damage to Earth's infrastructure, but I managed it."

"Just how bad is it?" Amanda asked. "I haven't really been keeping up with those details and I haven't been back to Earth myself yet."

Mitchell looked haunted. "It's bad. Really bad."

"How bad?" she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

"Well, it's been less than 24 hours since the battle ended," Mitchell said. "So the figures are somewhat preliminary, but they don't expect them to get changed much. 2.5 billion people died."

"2.5 bil-" Amanda stammered, unable to take in the enormity of it. Mitchell handed her his PDA. She activated it, and it showed video, probably taken from a satellite.

Earth's cities were burning. The devastation was so massive that the burning hulks of dead cities were easily visible from orbit, the smoke covering enormous areas.

"2.5 billion," she whispered. "40% of Earth's population just gone in a single day. And on an Easter Sunday, more's the pity."

Mitchell nodded. "They're already calling it the 'Easter Sunday War.' We got bloodied really bad. Earth suffered the equivalent a full on nuclear exchange. The amount of dust thrown into the atmosphere has shifted the planetary albedo. The effect is temporary, but for the next three years or so, we're expecting a nuclear winter. It will be chilly in the summer and brutally cold in the winter. Complete crop failure is almost assured for those three years. Much of the world's infrastructure is gone, though data infrastructure like the Internet and cell phone service came through surprisingly well."

"Oh, God," she said. "Please tell me there is some good news?"

"Yes, there is some. The same nanite tech that the Alliance tried to use against us can be adapted for construction. They're telling me that they honestly believe we can have basic infrastructure rebuilt in under a year. Our allies have offered to let us lease land on their worlds for farming so we don't all starve to death. We've already got people on P3X-797 and Cimerria getting set up. Of course, the Cimerrians demanded we let them join us in continuing the war against the Wraith," Mitchell said.

"Most importantly, however, one thing did go our way. Neither the Alliance nor the Wraith found the Theta Site," Mitchell growled. "They've already towed the _North Carolina_ back to the shipyards there and are working to get her repaired. The yards there have already started laying down keels for a half dozen more just like here, as well as dozens of smaller ships. They're also building colony ships."

Amanda looked at him questioningly. "Colony ships?"

"We came perilously close to getting wiped out," Mitchell said. "The new president has decided, and I agree with him, that we should colonize as many uninhabited worlds as possible as a way to ensure our civilization survives. We're going to the stars in numbers. The politicians are still working out how colony worlds will be apportioned to which countries, but I think they're going to go on a finders keepers basis. So I don't know. Maybe calling it the 'Easter Sunday War' is appropriate. We got hit hard, but we're not staying down."

Amanda nodded, fire in here eyes. "No, we're not staying down." She waited a moment until the fire passed. "You think the IOA will like this whole 'finders keepers' thing on colony worlds?"

"The IOA is dead. Literally. The bombardment that destroyed Brussels got them," Mitchell said. "And I know it's bad to speak ill of the dead, but their leadership by committee is part of what got us into this mess. The President has proposed a new military alliance against the Lucian Alliance and the Wraith. He's supposed to be going public with it in his speech this afternoon. THIS alliance won't be lead by committee, however."

"Well, thank God for that," Amanda said. She looked back down at Mitchell's PDA and shook her head. "Everything is going to change."

"Perhaps," Mitchell said.

"The enormity of this is just-" Amanda began. "We've never faced anything like this in all our history. Not even the Greatest Generation that won World War 2 faced such a daunting task, and surely we don't think ourselves their equal. How will we ever get through this?"

"The people of that generation probably thought much the same as you when Pearl Harbor was attacked," Mitchell said. "Granted, this revelation is greater than any they had to face. Nevertheless, when the call came, they paid whatever price had to be paid and rose to the challenge before them. When the time comes, _so will we_."

Amanda met his eyes, and he saw something feral, something wild in them. Mitchell suddenly felt sorry for the Wraith.

"On a good note, you will continue on as a Section Leader in the squadron. The brass will be watching you more closely, but given the circumstances, if you keep you record clean you should be getting your Captain's bars back within a few months. Behave for a couple of years and they'll probably bump you to Major and make you XO. Colonel Sheppard tells me he'd be happy to have you in that slot under his command when that time comes. I've been transferred to another squadron to train them up like I did with your squadron." Mitchell cleared his throat a bit, seemingly nervous. "That, of course, means I won't be your direct superior anymore."

Her father, seeing a cue, took it. "Sweetie, I'm going to go to the mess hall for a few minutes. When you're done, come find me and we'll head back home together. Colonel Mitchell has graciously given you a few days leave and everyone back home really wants to see you."

"OK, dad," she said.

The two of them were alone.

"So, Colonel Mitchell," she began. "Is there a reason I should be made explicitly aware that you're no longer going to be my direct superior?"

"Please, Amanda. Call me Cameron. Or Cam. If we're really going to engage in something that is _almost_ a violation of regs, and will absolutely be a scandal, you should call me by my first name."

She chuckled a bit at that. "I guess you're right about that...Cam."

"Thank you," he said. "I do feel a bit odd about this, to be honest. I mean, I'm like 15 years older than you are."

She waved dismissively. "Closer to 20 years, actually. You're in your mid-40s and I'm in my mid-late 20s. But we're going to live 700 years. Nanites, remember? In that context, 20 years pretty much doesn't matter."

"Huh," Mitchell said. "I hadn't really thought through that. It will still be scandalous for a while, you know. At least until the extended lifespan thing percolates through everyone's heads. People are going to talk."

"Let them talk then," Amanda said. She stepped up to Mitchell, put her arms around him, and kissed him.

After a moment they disentangled themselves. "By the way, there's something I was hoping I could get you do. A little task, one I think you will enjoy."

"What's that?"

"I've talked with Admiral Rawlins, and he thinks it would be appropriate to send the Wraith a bit of hate mail. You up for it?"

**XXXXXXXXXX**

Sam sat at Jack's bedside. He seemed comfortable, but he had yet to awaken. She really had things she needed to be doing. The cleanup of the mess left by the Alliance and the Wraith was going to take a long time, and she needed to be doing her part.

She just couldn't bring herself leave Jack's bedside.

She had dozed off in her chair when she was startled back to wakefulness. "Jack!" she said.

Jack was sitting up, looking a bit groggy, but he was awake. Jack wiggled his fingers and toes, touched his legs, felt his face and then, much to Sam's amusement, grabbed himself between the legs. "Thank God," he said. "Everything's still here and it works."

Sam more or less tackled him in a bear hug. "Don't ever scare me like that again," she said.

Jack put an arm weakly around her drawing her closer. "I'm not planning on it." Jack disentangled himself from her, and grabbed a mirror sitting on a table next to his bed. He looked at Sam. "Got to see if I got any new scars. Chicks dig scars, you know."

Jack looked in the mirror and almost did a double take. "Is that..."

"Yes, your old hair color is coming back in," Sam said.

Jack looked up at her with that distant expression he would often use when thinking hard about something. "You had them put those freaky microscopic robots in me, didn't you?"

Sam smiled. "Sorry, honey. It was the only way to keep you in the land of the living."

Jack looked back at the mirror. "Well...I guess I can forgive you. This time."

"That's very good of you," Sam chuckled. She settled on the bed next to him, and they held each other for a while.


	28. Epilogue

_Author's Note: Finally done! Hope you all have enjoyed it._

**Epilogue**

The Queen sat upon her throne, lording over her servants. She was angry.

Very angry.

Her plans had not gone as they should've. Rebels among her own people had cost her dearly. That was bad enough, but the failure of the joint operation with the Lucian Alliance had been a disaster.

The operation hadn't been a total loss, no. She had lost comparatively little of her combat strength in the failed operation, and a lot of damage had been done to her enemies. But they had not been crippled. What should've been an easy mop up operation for her follow on forces now promised to be a full on intergalactic war.

Before she could continue her ruminations further, a control on her personal computer station beeped, indicating an incoming message.

"Leave," she said curtly to her guards. The two guards, lacking much in the way of a mind, followed their queen's telepathically enhanced order and left her.

She brought up the message. It showed a human woman. She was pale, nearly as pale as one of her own people, but without the greenish hue to her skin one of her people would've had. She had dark hair and eyes that were that odd blue color some humans seemed to have.

"You have failed," the human said. "Your plan was clever and well thought out, and it did cost us dearly, but in failing to destroy us you have doomed yourselves. We know who you are. We know where you are. We've seen with our own eyes your crimes. The kidnapping and murder of innocents, the butchery of children, and the indiscriminate slaughter of people in their homes."

The Queen, despite herself, held very still in response to the human's message. It was a predator's response to a perceived threat to remain still, and even as far removed from their primitive days as they were, the Queen couldn't quite suppress that animal instinct, especially as she looked into those icy blue eyes and saw a fellow predator.

"Prepare yourself," the human said. "We're coming."


End file.
